Thanks Nicolas for pointing out off-thread that dh_golang already had these: DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES_ALL https://manpages.debian.org/unstable/dh-golang/Debian::Debhelper::Buildsystem::golang.3pm.en.html#DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES I switched to using these in all the packages and it works well.