Install gops with Homebrew, apk, dnf, Nix, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• gops

Project history

The google/gops repository was created in 2016. Its README describes a tool that lists Go processes and can diagnose processes that start the optional gops agent.

gops built on a Go-specific runtime reality: Go binaries carry enough build/runtime identity to make process listing useful, and the runtime exposes diagnostics such as goroutine stacks, memory statistics, pprof profiles, garbage collection controls, and execution tracing.

The project retained a small command-line surface while expanding subcommands around local PID inspection and remote host:port agent access.

Adoption history

gops became a recognizable Go ecosystem utility because it solves a problem shared by many Go service operators: identifying which processes are Go programs and collecting runtime diagnostics without attaching a general-purpose debugger.

The input package facts list Homebrew, Alpine, Fedora, Nix, and openSUSE packages. That packaging breadth reflects a system-tool role across developer workstations and server-oriented Linux distributions.

The optional agent model limited universal introspection but made deeper diagnostics explicit: uninstrumented Go processes can be listed, while applications that import `github.com/google/gops/agent` expose richer data.

How it is used

Running `gops` with no arguments lists local Go processes with PID, parent PID, program name, Go version, and binary path. Processes running the gops agent are marked in the list.

With a PID or agent address, gops can report process details, stack traces, memory statistics, runtime stats, GC settings, CPU and heap pprof profiles, and execution traces.

The README documents both local mode, where the target process must run as the same user, and remote mode, where the user supplies the agent address.

Why package nerds care

gops is package-nerd bait because it is both a command and an importable agent package. Installing the binary is useful, but the most interesting behavior appears when Go programs deliberately import the agent.

It also shows why language-specific process tools exist alongside generic Unix tools: `ps`, `top`, and `lsof` know processes, but gops knows Go runtime concepts such as goroutines, heap profiles, and Go build versions.

Timeline

• 2016: google/gops repository created.
• 2017: README examples show Go 1.9-era process listing and runtime diagnostics.
• 2010s: Project documents optional `github.com/google/gops/agent` integration for richer diagnostics.
• 2020s: Distribution appears across Homebrew and multiple Linux package sets.

Related projects

• Go's runtime/pprof and runtime tracing facilities provide the diagnostic substrate for gops commands.
• The gops agent package is embedded by target Go programs that want remote or richer inspection.
• Generic system tools such as ps and pprof overlap with parts of the gops workflow, but gops packages Go-specific discovery and diagnostics together.

Sources

• https://github.com/google/gops
• https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/gops
• https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/gops/agent
• https://pkg.go.dev/runtime/pprof
• https://pkg.go.dev/runtime/trace