As I join a new company, I often feel like an impostor. After all the interviews, they really seem to know what they’re doing. I’m humbled and ready to learn from the best.
On one such occasion, a few days in, I dealt with a production outage and asked the most senior engineer for help. They came to the rescue and casually flipped a value in the database with a manual update.

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This post explores handling database transactions in Go while adhering to layered architecture principles. It emphasizes the importance of keeping critical logic separate from SQL queries using patterns such as the Repository pattern, the UpdateFn pattern, and the Transaction Provider pattern. Various approaches to transaction management are discussed, highlighting their advantages and drawbacks to help maintain code clarity and integrity.

Database Transactions in Go with Layered Architecture

Transactions in the logic layer (avoid if you can)

Transactions inside the repository (better, but far from perfect)

The UpdateFn Pattern (our go-to solution)

The Transaction Provider (for the edge cases)

<p>I’ve found that using the Transaction Provider pattern really helps in keeping the transaction logic clean and separate from the business logic, but it’s also important to consider the specific use case and not overcomplicate things - sometimes, a simple transaction wrapper in the service layer can be enough 🤔.</p>
