The cgo tool is enabled by default for native builds on systems where it is expected to work. It is disabled by default when cross-compiling. You can control this by setting the CGO_ENABLED environment variable when running the go tool: set it to 1 to enable the use of cgo, and to 0 to disable it. The go tool will set the build constraint "cgo" if cgo is enabled. The special import "C" implies the "cgo" build constraint, as though the file also said "// +build cgo". Therefore, if cgo is disabled, files that import "C" will not be built by the go tool