...It is not intended for end users who are installing Go software - that's what go get does. It is strongly recommended that you use a released version of dep. While tip is never purposefully broken, its stability is not guaranteed. Note that dep requires a functioning Go workspace and GOPATH. Dep is centered around the idea of the "four state system" - a model for classifying and organizing the on-disk state with which a package manager interacts. This was first articulated as a coherent, general model in this (long) article, though many of the principles in the four state model were derived from existing package managers.