Introduction

Copper is a batteries-included web toolkit for Go. It provides everything you need to build a complete web application, including an HTTP server, routing, dependency injection, configuration, logging, structured errors, and SQL queries with migrations, along with a CLI that scaffolds your project, rebuilds it as you work, and compiles the entire application into a single binary. At the same time, Copper stays out of your way. It relies on the standard library as much as possible, so handlers are plain http.HandlerFuncs and models are plain structs. There is no ORM and no reflection magic, and your business logic is never locked in. You own main.go, and every scaffolded file lands in your repo as code you are free to edit.

The GRIP Stack

Copper is opinionated about one thing: the stack. It’s built and optimized for GRIP:

Golang for your server, services, and data layer
React for your pages
Inertia to connect the two with server-side routing
Postgres for your data

GRIP is a stack rather than a product, and you could assemble it by hand. Copper is the fastest way to build it: a single copper create gives you all four pieces, wired together and ready to build on. Of course, every piece is swappable. You may build JSON APIs with no frontend at all, render classic Go templates, or use SQLite or MySQL instead of Postgres.

Why Copper?

A Complete Toolkit

Routing, dependency injection, configuration, logging, structured errors, SQL migrations, and a Vite-powered React frontend with hot module replacement are all included, so you can start building features instead of assembling libraries.

No API Layer to Maintain

With Inertia, your Go routers render React pages directly and pass props the same way you would pass template data. You get a modern React frontend without writing an API client, a REST layer, or a client-side router.

Idiomatic Go

You write regular handlers, structs, and interfaces, and Copper wires them together with google/wire. Dependency injection happens at compile time, so there is no runtime container to configure or debug.

A Single Binary

Frontend assets, templates, and migrations are all compiled into one executable, so deploying is copying one file.

A Taste of Copper

A page in a Copper application is a Go handler and a React component. The handler loads data and renders the component with props:

pkg/rockets/router.go

func (ro *Router) HandleFleetPage(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	rockets, err := ro.queries.ListRockets(r.Context())
	if err != nil {
		ro.logger.Error("Failed to list rockets", err)
		w.WriteHeader(http.StatusInternalServerError)
		return
	}

	ro.inertia.Render(w, r, inertia.RenderParams{
		Component: "fleet",
		Props: map[string]any{
			"rockets": rockets,
		},
	})
}

web/src/pages/fleet.tsx

type Rocket = { id: number; name: string; status: string };

export default function Fleet({ rockets }: { rockets: Rocket[] }) {
  return (
    <ul>
      {rockets.map((rocket) => (
        <li key={rocket.id}>
          {rocket.name} — {rocket.status}
        </li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  );
}

There is no fetch call, serialization layer, or duplicated routing to maintain, since the server decides what to render and which data it receives.

Next Steps

To get started, install the Copper CLI and create your first project. If you would like to see everything working together, the tutorial walks through building your first application end to end. We can’t wait to see what you build.

Getting Started

The Basics

Architecture

HTTP

Database

Frontend

Digging Deeper

Reference

The GRIP Stack

Why Copper?

A Complete Toolkit

No API Layer to Maintain

Idiomatic Go

A Single Binary

A Taste of Copper

Next Steps

​The GRIP Stack

​Why Copper?

​A Complete Toolkit

​No API Layer to Maintain

​Idiomatic Go

​A Single Binary

​A Taste of Copper

​Next Steps

The GRIP Stack

Why Copper?

A Complete Toolkit

No API Layer to Maintain

Idiomatic Go

A Single Binary

A Taste of Copper

Next Steps