How to Pass Context Through Your Application

Pass context by creating a context.Context with context.WithCancel or context.WithTimeout and explicitly threading it as the first argument to every function in your call chain.

ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 5*time.Second)
defer cancel()

// Thread ctx through your functions
result := doWork(ctx, data)

This ensures cancellation signals and deadlines propagate from the entry point down to the lowest-level operations.

Context is like a shared clipboard that travels with your request as it moves through your code. It carries important instructions like 'stop now' or 'time is up' so every part of your program knows when to quit. You must manually pass this clipboard to every function that needs to know about the request's status.