TinyGo is a Go compiler intended for use in small places such as microcontrollers, WebAssembly (wasm/wasi), and command-line tools.

It reuses libraries used by the Go language tools alongside LLVM to provide an alternative way to compile programs written in the Go programming language.

Here is an example program that blinks the built-in LED when run directly on any supported board with onboard LED:

package main

import (
    "machine"
    "time"
)

func main() {
    led := machine.LED
    led.Configure(machine.PinConfig{Mode: machine.PinOutput})
    for {
        led.Low()
        time.Sleep(time.Millisecond * 1000)

        led.High()
        time.Sleep(time.Millisecond * 1000)
    }
}

The above program can be compiled and run without modification on an Arduino Uno, an Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, a Seeed Studio XIAO-ESP32S3 or any of the many supported boards that have a built-in LED, just by setting the correct TinyGo compiler target. For example, this compiles and flashes an Arduino Uno:

tinygo flash -target arduino-uno examples/blinky1

TinyGo is very useful for compiling programs both for use in browsers (WASM) as well as for use on servers and other edge devices (WASI).

TinyGo programs can run in Fastly Compute, Fermyon Spin, wazero and many other WebAssembly runtimes.

Here is a small TinyGo program for use by a WASI host application:

package main

//go:wasmexport add
func add(x, y uint32) uint32 {
	return x + y
}

This compiles the above TinyGo program for use on any WASI Preview 1 runtime:

tinygo build -buildmode=c-shared -o add.wasm -target=wasip1 add.go

You can also use the same syntax as Go 1.24+:

GOOS=wasip1 GOARCH=wasm tinygo build -buildmode=c-shared -o add.wasm add.go

See the getting started instructions for information on how to install TinyGo, as well as how to run the TinyGo compiler using our Docker container.