Generate a PDF in Go

The simplest way to generate a PDF in Go is to call the Docweave API: POST your HTML to /api/v1/pdf with the standard net/http client and write the response to disk with os.WriteFile — no headless browser to run yourself.

Generate a PDF from Go with net/http

Build the request body, POST it with an Authorization: Bearer header, and write the returned PDF bytes to a file:

package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
	"os"
)

type pdfSource struct {
	Type string `json:"type"`
	HTML string `json:"html"`
}

type pdfRequest struct {
	Source pdfSource `json:"source"`
	IdempotencyKey string `json:"idempotencyKey"`
}

func main() {
	reqBody := pdfRequest{
		Source: pdfSource{
			Type: "html",
			HTML: "<h1>Hello from Go</h1><p>Generated with Docweave.</p>",
		},
		IdempotencyKey: "go-example-001",
	}

	payload, err := json.Marshal(reqBody)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	req, err := http.NewRequest(
		http.MethodPost,
		"https://docweave.dev/api/v1/pdf",
		bytes.NewReader(payload),
	)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("DOCWEAVE_API_KEY"))
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
	req.Header.Set("Accept", "application/pdf")

	client := &http.Client{}
	resp, err := client.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	if resp.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
		body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
		fmt.Printf("render failed: %d %s\n", resp.StatusCode, string(body))
		os.Exit(1)
	}

	pdfBytes, err := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	if err := os.WriteFile("output.pdf", pdfBytes, 0644); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	fmt.Println("wrote output.pdf")
}

The source can also be { "type": "url", "url": "..." } to render a live page, or { "type": "template" } plus a data object to bind JSON into a stored HTML template. Docweave renders every source with Chromium and returns a ready PDF.

…or call it from an AI agent

The same rendering path is exposed as an open-source MCP server (npx @docweave/mcp), so an AI agent — including one your Go service shells out to or orchestrates — gets a generate_pdf tool with no HTTP boilerplate:

// From an AI agent (e.g. a Go-based agent or one your Go service
// shells out to) — no HTTP plumbing, via the MCP generate_pdf tool:
generate_pdf({
  source: {
    type: "html",
    html: "<h1>Hello from Go</h1><p>Generated with Docweave.</p>"
  },
  outputPath: "/tmp/output.pdf"
})

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