Use Go as a Redis Client (go-redis, Ping, Get, Set, Hashes)

Redis is an in-memory data store often used as a cache or database. Go pairs well with Redis for services and workers. This guide uses the maintained client github.com/redis/go-redis/v9 with context.Context for calls like Ping, Set, Get, and HSet. Install Redis first—for example, follow install Redis on Ubuntu or install Redis on Rocky Linux 9—then create a small module on your machine.

Tested with Go 1.24 on Linux against Redis 7.x locally. Examples use go-redis/v9 and require a running redis-server.

Project layout and dependency

From an empty directory (see create a Go module if go mod init is new to you):

mkdir go-redis-app && cd go-redis-app
go mod init example.com/go-redis-app
go get github.com/redis/go-redis/v9

Create main.go for the snippets below, or split into files as your app grows. For a larger API, see CRUD REST API with Redis in Go.

Connect with Ping

Set Addr to your instance (default localhost:6379, or the primary endpoint from Amazon ElastiCache for Redis when the cluster runs in AWS). If Redis requires a password, set Password in redis.Options. Use DB to pick the logical database index.

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"github.com/redis/go-redis/v9"
)

func main() {
	ctx := context.Background()

	rdb := redis.NewClient(&redis.Options{
		Addr:     "localhost:6379",
		Password: "", // set when Redis uses AUTH
		DB:       0,
	})

	if err := rdb.Ping(ctx).Err(); err != nil {
		fmt.Println("Redis:", err)
		return
	}
	fmt.Println("Redis is working.")
}

Run with go run . after Redis is up. Wrong or missing passwords typically surface as NOAUTH Authentication required.

Set and Get

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"time"

	"github.com/redis/go-redis/v9"
)

func main() {
	ctx := context.Background()
	rdb := redis.NewClient(&redis.Options{Addr: "localhost:6379", DB: 1})

	if err := rdb.Set(ctx, "greeting", "hello", time.Minute).Err(); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	val, err := rdb.Get(ctx, "greeting").Result()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(val)
}

The third argument to Set is a TTL (0 means no expiry). After one minute in this example, Get returns redis.Nil when the key has expired.

Hash example (HSet / HMGet)

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"github.com/redis/go-redis/v9"
)

func main() {
	ctx := context.Background()
	rdb := redis.NewClient(&redis.Options{Addr: "localhost:6379", DB: 0})

	err := rdb.HSet(ctx, "user:1", map[string]interface{}{
		"username": "amitkumar",
		"email":    "amit@example.com",
	}).Err()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	vals, err := rdb.HMGet(ctx, "user:1", "username", "email").Result()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(vals[0], vals[1])
}

Summary

Use github.com/redis/go-redis/v9 with context.Background() (or a request-scoped context), configure redis.NewClient, verify with Ping, then use Get/Set, TTLs, and HSet/HMGet for hashes. Match password and DB index to your server. The go install toolchain uses different TLS and proxy settings than your app’s net/http client; fixing module download TLS is separate from Redis client code.

References

• redis/go-redis
• Redis commands