I got caught with maps initially, and had to question why everything else was just "var x string", which also gives it a value, but maps needed a "var x = make(make[string]string)", otherwise on first assignment it panics.

There's a good explanation somewhere, ah here it is: https://go.dev/blog/maps

But you get used to it, and move on, especially with the sort of TDD workflow that go test encourages