How do you implement graceful shutdown for a Go HTTP server?

Summary

Listen for SIGINT/SIGTERM (signal.NotifyContext), then call server.Shutdown(ctx) with a timeout: it stops accepting new connections and waits for in-flight requests to finish before returning.

Longer Answer

Also close other resources (database pools, message consumers) after the server drains, and fail readiness checks at the start of shutdown so load balancers stop sending traffic.

Code Example

ctx, stop := signal.NotifyContext(context.Background(), os.Interrupt, syscall.SIGTERM)
defer stop()
go srv.ListenAndServe()
<-ctx.Done()
shutdownCtx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 10*time.Second)
defer cancel()
srv.Shutdown(shutdownCtx)

Key Points

• signal.NotifyContext for SIGTERM.
• server.Shutdown(ctx) drains requests.
• Close resources after; fail readiness first.

Deep dive: Go Web Frameworks: Production Ready