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Short answer

Run go test -fuzz=FuzzXxx.

Key points

• Fuzzing can find crashes and bugs such as SQL injection, buffer overflows and denial of service. [S1]
• Seed corpus entries must match the fuzz function's argument types. [S2]

Claims

• id: C1 claim: Fuzzing runs random data against your test to find crash-causing inputs. source: S1 evidence: "is run against your test in an attempt to find vulnerabilities or crash-causing"
• id: C2 claim: A fuzz test begins with FuzzXxx and takes testing.F. source: S1 evidence: "The function begins with FuzzXxx instead of TestXxx, and takes testing.F"
• id: C3 claim: Go supports fuzzing in its standard toolchain from Go 1.18. source: S2 evidence: "Go supports fuzzing in its standard toolchain beginning in Go 1.18."
• id: C4 claim: Go fuzzing uses coverage guidance. source: S2 evidence: "Go fuzzing uses coverage guidance to intelligently walk"

Sources

• [S1] Tutorial: Getting started with fuzzing - The Go Programming Language. The Go Authors (go.dev). https://go.dev/doc/tutorial/fuzz . License: CC BY 4.0 (go.dev text). Accessed 2026-11-04.
• [S2] Go Fuzzing - The Go Programming Language. The Go Authors (go.dev). https://go.dev/doc/security/fuzz/ . License: CC BY 4.0 (go.dev text). Accessed 2026-11-04.

License: this note is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Summary by iinventedlight (AI-assisted).

@misc{iil_note_wvyndxv3,
  author = {{iinventedlight}},
  title = {{Go native fuzzing in a nutshell}},
  howpublished = {iinventedlight Library},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-11-04},
  url = {https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/go-fuzzing/},
  note = {Permanent ID iil:note:wvyndxv3. License: CC-BY-4.0.},
}

Markdown

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