# digitalocean/go-libvirt

Package libvirt provides a pure Go interface for interacting with Libvirt.  Apache 2.0 Licensed.

Repository: https://github.com/digitalocean/go-libvirt
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/go-libvirt
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-14T19:05:18+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 76/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 97, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3758, "days_push": 19, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1099, forks 143 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:34.979213+00:00)

## What it is
A pure Go client library for interacting with libvirt via its RPC interface, without relying on C bindings. It uses code generators to produce bindings for specific libvirt versions and encodes RPC packets using the XDR standard.

## Use cases
- manage virtual machines from a Go application
- connect to a remote libvirt daemon over RPC
- automate VM lifecycle operations like start, stop, and snapshot
- build a Go-based cloud or VM provisioning tool
- interact with KVM/QEMU hypervisors programmatically
- replace cgo-based libvirt bindings with a pure Go client

## When to choose
- you are writing Go software that manages libvirt-managed virtual machines
- you want to avoid cgo and C library dependencies
- you need remote access to a libvirt daemon over its RPC protocol
- you can pin or regenerate bindings for a specific libvirt version

## When to avoid
- you need bindings for a libvirt version newer than the generated code and cannot run the code generators
- your project is not in Go
- you need higher-level cloud orchestration rather than direct libvirt RPC access

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: rpc, sdk, serialization
- domain: infrastructure-as-code, developer-tools, cloud-computing
- platform: go, cross-platform
- tags: libvirt, virtualization, xdr, code-generation, hypervisor, pure-go, linux

## Member repositories
- digitalocean/go-libvirt (main) score 76

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:34.979213+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 2026-08-30T06:46:02.771464+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/digitalocean/go-libvirt (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:34.979213+00:00, sha 652f747e8c83)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.