DEV/PROD microservice flag design

golang_language_guidelines.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# Dev vs Prod Flags
+At root of go microservice define an env.go file with an init() function
+
+This init function looks for a single required variable "ENV" and then sets either prod or dev env vars accordingly
+
+This makes it easy to switch between dev and prod, keep track of env var changes, and works with any dev flow
+
+your init() function should handle 3 cases as follows
+```
+func init() 
+    if os.Getenv("ENV) == "prod" {
+        // set environment variables via either secret manager or hard coded here
+        os.Setenv("some var", "some value)...
+        thirdparty.secretmanager.getVar("some secret var", "some secret value")
+
+        // All env vars should be accessible via os.getenv("var name")
+    } else if os.Getenv("ENV") == "dev" {
+        // same deal as above, except use dev values for staging databases etc
+    } else {
+        // enforce ENV is set and valid or else quit
+		panic("ENV must be set to prod or dev")
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Then access them in your program via os.Getenv("your var...")