// the find
spf13/nitro
Quick and easy performance analyzer library for golang
Nitro is a minimal step-timing library for Go that lets you instrument an application with named checkpoints and prints elapsed time plus memory allocation stats for each step. It was built as an internal tool for Hugo and extracted into its own package. At 299 stars and one source file, it's more of a published utility than a maintained library.
Extremely low friction to add — three lines and you have step timings with memory allocation counts, which Go's built-in pprof doesn't give you in that linear-step format. The output format (step time, cumulative time, MB, allocs) is genuinely useful for diagnosing where a CLI tool spends its time. Cobra/flagset integration is documented and works without the default flag registration.
Abandoned since October 2013 — over 12 years without a commit, and the entire library is one file. Go's tooling has moved on: `go test -bench`, `pprof`, and `runtime/trace` cover this use case with far more detail and active support. No concurrent safety, no reset capability, no way to export results programmatically — it just prints to stdout. Adopting this today means owning it yourself since there's no upstream.