# burrowers/garble

Obfuscate Go builds

Repository: https://github.com/burrowers/garble
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/garble
Language: Go
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: golang, obfuscation, build, code-obfuscator, binary
Last push: 2026-08-25T10:50:02+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 89/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 71, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2460, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 38, "gap_med": 121.5, "n_releases_24m": 7}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5659, forks 369 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:27.355187+00:00)

## What it is
Garble is a CLI tool that obfuscates Go binaries by wrapping the Go toolchain's compiler and linker. It replaces identifiers, package paths, and position information with hashed values, and can strip build, module, and debug information.

## Use cases
- obfuscate a Go binary before distributing it to end users
- prevent reverse engineering of a proprietary Go application
- share obfuscated source code of a private Go library
- reduce Go binary size with the -tiny flag
- de-obfuscate panic stack traces from obfuscated builds
- remove build and debug metadata from Go binaries

## When to choose
- you distribute compiled Go binaries whose source is private or commercial
- you want deterministic, reproducible obfuscated builds integrated with the standard go toolchain
- you need to reverse obfuscated stack traces back to readable ones
- you want smaller Go binaries by stripping extra runtime information

## When to avoid
- you need strong protection against determined attackers, since obfuscation only discourages reverse engineering
- your code relies heavily on reflection or runtime name inspection that obfuscation may break
- you build libraries consumed by others who need readable source
- you are not using Go

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: build-tool, security, compiler, developer-tools
- domain: security, developer-tools, programming-languages
- platform: go, cli, cross-platform
- tags: obfuscation, reverse-engineering-protection, go-toolchain, binary-hardening, command-line

## Member repositories
- burrowers/garble (main) score 89

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:27.355187+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:54:20.733203+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/burrowers/garble (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:27.355187+00:00, sha 083d375ca687)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.