1. Remove any existing go.mod and go.sum files

2. Set your GO111MODULE to auto using

go env -w GO111MODULE=auto

3. go mod init <module_name>

4. import the necessary external packages in your go files

5. go mod tidy

6. the above command will install all the dependencies

IMPORTANT: If you open a folder containing multiple separate GO projects in vs code then you will error that unable to import the package. That is because Go is getting confused looking at multiple go.mod files at the same time. To fix this issue, open a single Go project in a single vs code instance