deploying go/gin to render

how to deploy a go backend that lives inside a turborepo monorepo — build cmd, openapi path, gin mode, all the gotchas

service setup on render

when creating a new web service on render:

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repo          → select your github repo
branch        → main
root dir      → . (leave as repo root, never change this for monorepos)
runtime       → Go  (render defaults to Node because it sees package.json — change it)

never set root dir to apps/backend — render needs to see the full monorepo to run commands across packages.

build command

depends on where your main.go lives:

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# if main.go is at apps/backend/cmd/server/main.go
cd packages/openapi && bun install && bun run generate && cp openapi.json ../../apps/backend/openapi.json && cd ../../apps/backend && go build -o main ./cmd/server
 
# if main.go is at apps/backend/cmd/main.go
cd packages/openapi && bun install && bun run generate && cp openapi.json ../../apps/backend/openapi.json && cd ../../apps/backend && go build -o main ./cmd
 
# if main.go is at apps/backend/main.go
cd packages/openapi && bun install && bun run generate && cp openapi.json ../../apps/backend/openapi.json && cd ../../apps/backend && go build -o main .

the cp openapi.json step is important — copies the generated file next to the binary so it can find it at runtime.

start command

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# same pattern — match where your binary ends up
apps/backend/main

env vars on render

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GIN_MODE=release         # not "production" — gin specifically uses "release"
PORT=5000                # or whatever port your server listens on
DATABASE_URL=            # your neon/postgres connection string
JWT_ACCESS_SECRET=       # your secrets
JWT_REFRESH_SECRET=
OPENAPI_PATH=            # see below

setting OPENAPI_PATH

render runs your binary from a specific absolute path. check your deploy logs for a line like:

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Generated openapi.json at /opt/render/project/go/src/github.com/YourUsername/yourrepo/apps/backend/openapi.json

or look for where your server starts:

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source=/opt/render/project/go/src/github.com/YourUsername/yourrepo/apps/backend/cmd/server/main.go

set OPENAPI_PATH to the absolute path of openapi.json in your backend:

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OPENAPI_PATH=/opt/render/project/go/src/github.com/YourUsername/yourrepo/apps/backend/openapi.json

in main.go the fallback looks like this:

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openapiPath := os.Getenv("OPENAPI_PATH")
if openapiPath == "" {
    openapiPath = filepath.Join("openapi.json")  // relative — works locally, breaks on render
}

the relative path works locally because you run the binary from the backend folder. on render the working directory is different — always use the absolute path via env var.

mistakes i made

render defaulted to Node runtime render sees package.json in the monorepo root and assumes Node. manually change runtime to Go.

turbo not found during build

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/usr/bin/bash: line 1: turbo: command not found
error: script "generate" exited with code 127

render doesn't have turbo installed globally. don't use turbo run generate in the build cmd — call the script directly with bun:

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cd packages/openapi && bun install && bun run generate

openapi.json returning 500

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[GIN] | 500 | GET "/openapi.json"
Document could not be loaded

the file was generated in packages/openapi/ but the binary looked for it relative to its own working directory. fix — copy the file to apps/backend/ during build and set OPENAPI_PATH to the absolute path on render.

set root dir to apps/backend build cmd failed because cd packages/openapi doesn't exist relative to apps/backend. always leave root dir as ..