The go.mod file declares go 1.16 right now. Module graph pruning was added in Go 1.17, meaning that other modules can import your module and only pick up the transitive dependencies that are actually reachable based on how they use your code. Right now, importing afero means importing a cloud apis, because the declared go version predates go 1.17.
The tidiest dependency graph will come from using go 1.18,
The go.sum file recorded by go mod tidy for a module by default includes checksums needed by the Go version one below the version specified in its go directive. So a go 1.17 module includes checksums needed for the full module graph loaded by Go 1.16, but a go 1.18 module will include only the checksums needed for the pruned module graph loaded by Go 1.17. The -compat flag can be used to override the default version (for example, to prune the go.sum file more aggressively in a go 1.17 module).
Go 1.18 is also the oldest Go release still supported by the Go team, so it's a reasonable choice of language version to declare.
The go.mod file declares go 1.16 right now. Module graph pruning was added in Go 1.17, meaning that other modules can import your module and only pick up the transitive dependencies that are actually reachable based on how they use your code. Right now, importing afero means importing a cloud apis, because the declared go version predates go 1.17.
The tidiest dependency graph will come from using go 1.18,
Go 1.18 is also the oldest Go release still supported by the Go team, so it's a reasonable choice of language version to declare.