Migrating from Kratos v2 to v3

Kratos v3 cleans up historical coupling in the core framework and makes several previously implicit dependencies explicit. This guide summarizes the main upgrade work tracked in go-kratos/kratos#3820.

1. Update Module Paths

Update Kratos imports from github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v2 to github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3.

// v2
import "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v2"

// v3
import "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3"

Then refresh dependencies:

go get github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3@latest
go mod tidy

Contrib modules also use /v3 import paths, for example github.com/go-kratos/kratos/contrib/middleware/jwt/v3.

2. Choose the JSON Codec Explicitly

In v2, encoding/json handled both ordinary Go JSON values and proto.Message values with protobuf JSON semantics. In v3, the core JSON codecs are split:

• github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3/encoding/json registers the standard-library JSON codec as json.
• github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3/encoding/protojson registers the protobuf JSON codec as protojson.
• github.com/go-kratos/kratos/contrib/encoding/json/v3 keeps the v2-compatible json codec behavior for migration.

New v3 code should prefer explicit imports:

import (
	_ "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3/encoding/json"
	_ "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3/encoding/protojson"
)

If a service depends on v2 behavior where the json codec also handles protobuf messages, use the contrib compatibility codec while migrating:

import _ "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/contrib/encoding/json/v3"

Do not register both JSON codecs for the same process unless you intentionally want the later import initialization to replace the earlier json codec registration.

3. Migrate Logging to slog

Kratos v3 uses the standard-library log/slog APIs. Code that depends on log.Logger, log.Helper, log.Valuer, log.NewStdLogger, or trace/service helper fields should migrate to *slog.Logger, log.NewHandler, and log.NewLogger.

import (
	"log/slog"
	"os"

	"github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3/log"
)

logger := log.NewLogger(
	slog.NewJSONHandler(os.Stdout, &slog.HandlerOptions{
		Level: slog.LevelInfo,
	}),
	log.WithFilter(log.FilterKey("password")),
).With(
	slog.String("service.name", "helloworld"),
	slog.String("service.version", "v1.0.0"),
)

log.SetDefault(logger)

Kratos application and middleware options now accept *slog.Logger.

app := kratos.New(
	kratos.Name("helloworld"),
	kratos.Logger(logger),
)

OpenTelemetry logging is provided by the contrib handler:

import (
	"github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v3/log"
	otel "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/contrib/otel/v3/log"
)

logger := log.NewLogger(otel.NewHandler("helloworld"))

4. Update JWT Middleware Imports

JWT middleware moved out of core so projects only pull github.com/golang-jwt/jwt/v5 when they use JWT.

// v2
import "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/v2/middleware/auth/jwt"

// v3
import "github.com/go-kratos/kratos/contrib/middleware/jwt/v3"

After changing imports, run:

go get github.com/go-kratos/kratos/contrib/middleware/jwt/v3@latest
go mod tidy

5. Review Circuit Breaker Customization

The default circuit breaker no longer depends on github.com/go-kratos/aegis. Default usage does not require code changes:

handler := circuitbreaker.Client()(next)

If your service injects a custom Aegis breaker, add Aegis as an explicit dependency and adapt the injection point to WithBreakerFactory:

handler := circuitbreaker.Client(
	circuitbreaker.WithBreakerFactory(func() circuitbreaker.CircuitBreaker {
		return newBreaker()
	}),
)(next)

6. Replace Direct HTTP binding Imports

The exported transport/http/binding package was removed. Generated _http.pb.go files do not need manual changes after regeneration.

For hand-written code:

• Replace binding.EncodeURL with http.BuildPath.
• Use transport/http.Context methods such as Bind, BindVars, BindQuery, and BindForm.
• Use encoding/form directly only for low-level query/form encoding needs.

path := http.BuildPath("/v1/users/{id}", req)

7. Regenerate Generated Code

After dependency and import updates, regenerate Kratos generated files:

go generate ./...
go mod tidy

Regeneration is especially important for services using generated HTTP clients or servers because v3 generated code no longer imports the removed HTTP binding package.

8. Validate the Upgrade

Run project tests and linters before shipping the migration:

go test ./...
go vet ./...

For this repository, use:

make test
make lint

Migration Checklist

• Update imports from /v2 to /v3.
• Choose encoding/json, encoding/protojson, or the contrib compatibility JSON codec.
• Replace old Kratos logging helpers with log/slog-based APIs.
• Move JWT imports to contrib/middleware/jwt/v3.
• Review custom circuit breaker dependencies.
• Replace direct transport/http/binding usage.
• Regenerate generated code.
• Run tests, lint, and go mod tidy.