Go API Gateway

Production-grade API Gateway built with Go for secure, scalable, and high-performance microservice communication.

Overview

Go API Gateway acts as a centralized entry point for backend services. It handles authentication, request routing, load balancing, rate limiting, logging, and observability while simplifying communication between clients and microservices.

This project demonstrates production-level backend engineering concepts commonly used in modern cloud-native systems.

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Key Features

Traffic Management

• Request Routing
• Reverse Proxy
• Load Balancing
• Service Discovery

Security

• JWT Authentication
• API Key Validation
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Request Validation

Reliability

• Rate Limiting
• Circuit Breaker
• Retry Mechanism
• Timeout Handling

Observability

• Structured Logging
• Request Tracing
• Metrics Collection
• Health Monitoring

Performance

• Connection Pooling
• Concurrent Request Handling
• Response Compression
• Efficient Routing Engine

Developer Experience

• Docker Support
• Environment Configuration
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Swagger API Documentation

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Architecture

                 Client
                    |
                    v
          +------------------+
          |   API Gateway    |
          +------------------+
             |      |      |
             |      |      |
             v      v      v

        User    Payment   Notification
       Service  Service     Service

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Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Language	Go
HTTP Server	net/http
Framework	Gin
Authentication	JWT
Containerization	Docker
CI/CD	GitHub Actions
Documentation	Swagger/OpenAPI
Monitoring	Prometheus
Visualization	Grafana

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Core Functionalities

Authentication Middleware

• JWT Validation
• Token Parsing
• Access Control

Reverse Proxy

• Request Forwarding
• Response Handling
• Header Management

Rate Limiter

• IP-based Limiting
• User-based Limiting
• Burst Protection

Load Balancer

Supported Strategies:

• Round Robin
• Least Connections
• Random Selection

Service Discovery

• Dynamic Service Registration
• Service Health Tracking

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Project Structure

go-api-gateway/

├── cmd/
│   └── server/
│
├── internal/
│   ├── config/
│   ├── gateway/
│   ├── middleware/
│   ├── proxy/
│   ├── loadbalancer/
│   ├── discovery/
│   ├── auth/
│   ├── logging/
│   └── metrics/
│
├── docs/
├── tests/
├── docker/
│
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── go.mod
└── README.md

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API Endpoints

Health Check

GET /health

Metrics

GET /metrics

Gateway Route Example

GET /api/users

Forwarded To:

http://user-service/api/users

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Planned Enhancements

• WebSocket Proxy
• gRPC Gateway Support
• Distributed Rate Limiting
• Kubernetes Deployment
• OpenTelemetry Integration
• AI-powered Traffic Analytics

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Performance Goals

• Handle 10,000+ concurrent connections
• Low-latency request forwarding
• High availability architecture
• Fault-tolerant service routing

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Local Development

Clone Repository

git clone https://github.com/karkra911/go-api-gateway.git
cd go-api-gateway

Run

go run cmd/server/main.go

Docker

docker-compose up --build

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Skills Demonstrated

• Backend Development
• Distributed Systems
• Reverse Proxy Engineering
• Authentication & Authorization
• Network Programming
• Microservices Architecture
• System Design
• DevOps Fundamentals

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Why This Project?

Modern companies such as Netflix, Uber, Amazon, and Spotify rely on API Gateway architectures to manage large-scale distributed systems.

This project showcases the practical backend engineering skills required for software engineering, backend development, cloud engineering, and remote Go developer roles.

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License

Licensed under the MIT License.