Exit

Use os.Exit to immediately exit with a given status.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "os"
)

func main() {

    // defers will not be run when using os.Exit
    // so this fmt.Println will never be called.
    defer fmt.Println("!")

    // Exit with status 3.
    os.Exit(3)
}

If you run exit.go using go run, the exit will be picked up by go and printed.

By building and executing a binary you can see the status in the terminal.

$ go run exit.go
exit status 3

$ go build exit.go
$ ./exit
$ echo $?
3

Note that the ! from our program never got printed.