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What is Salt?

Salt is a Golang utility library that provides a collection of modular, reusable packages designed to simplify and enhance application development. It offers battle-tested components for common tasks, including configuration management, CLI utilities, authentication, logging, database operations, and observability. Built and maintained by Raystack, Salt powers production applications across the Raystack ecosystem.

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Why use Salt?

Salt eliminates the need to write boilerplate code for common application needs, allowing you to focus on building your core business logic.

Production-ready

Battle-tested libraries used in production across the Raystack ecosystem

Modular design

Import only what you need without unnecessary dependencies

Type-safe

Full Go type safety with comprehensive validation support

Cloud-native

Built for modern infrastructure with observability and graceful shutdowns

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Key features

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Configuration management

Load and validate configuration from multiple sources with a clear precedence order: 
loader := config.NewLoader(
    config.WithFile("./config.yaml"),
    config.WithEnvPrefix("MYAPP"),
    config.WithFlags(flags),
)
Configuration sources are merged with the following precedence (highest to lowest):
  1. Command-line flags
  2. Environment variables
  3. Configuration files
  4. Default values

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Structured logging

Choose between Logrus and Zap implementations with a unified interface: 
// Using Logrus
logger := log.NewLogrus(
    log.LogrusWithLevel("info"),
)

// Using Zap
logger := log.NewZap(
    log.ZapWithConfig(zapConfig),
)

logger.Info("request processed", "duration", duration, "status", 200)

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Database operations

Connect to databases with connection pooling, timeouts, and transaction support: 
client, err := db.New(db.Config{
    Driver:          "postgres",
    URL:            "postgres://user:pass@localhost/db",
    MaxOpenConns:   25,
    MaxIdleConns:   5,
    ConnMaxLifeTime: 5 * time.Minute,
})

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CLI utilities

Build interactive command-line tools with:
  • Commander: Command management and documentation generation
  • Printer: Formatted output (tables, JSON, YAML, markdown)
  • Prompter: Interactive user prompts and surveys
  • Terminator: Terminal utilities and browser integration

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Authentication & security

  • OIDC: OpenID Connect authentication flows and token management
  • Audit: Security event logging and compliance tracking

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Observability

Integrate OpenTelemetry for metrics, traces, and monitoring: 
cleanup, err := telemetry.Init(ctx, telemetry.Config{
    AppName:    "my-service",
    AppVersion: "1.0.0",
}, logger)
defer cleanup()

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Package overview

config

Configuration management with environment variables, files, and defaults

log

Structured logging with Logrus and Zap support

db

Database connections, migrations, and transaction helpers

cli

Command-line tools, prompts, and formatted output

auth

OIDC authentication and audit logging

server

HTTP server utilities and SPA serving

telemetry

OpenTelemetry integration for observability

jsondiff

JSON diff calculation and reconstruction

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Who uses Salt?

Salt is used across the Raystack ecosystem to power production applications including:
  • API services and microservices
  • CLI tools and utilities
  • Data processing pipelines
  • Infrastructure management tools

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Requirements

  • Go 1.22 or higher
  • Compatible with Linux, macOS, and Windows

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Next steps

1

Install Salt

Get started by installing Salt in your Go projectInstallation guide →
2

Quick start

Build your first application with SaltQuickstart guide →
3

Explore packages

Dive deeper into specific packagesPackage overview →