One way in Go to build a template engine/renderer.

contact.html

{{template "layout" .}}

{{define `htmlAttrs`}} ng-app="myApp"{{end}}

{{define "headTitle"}}Contact us<!-- can't include "parent" like in Jinja/Twig so these "blocks" are not 100% flexible, but still usable -->{{end}}

{{define "headExtraScripts"}}
  <!-- assuming this is not in an asset pipeline where it normally would be -->
  <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.3.14/angular.min.js"></script>
{{end}}

{{define "bodyClass"}}contact{{end}}
{{define "bodyAttrs"}}ng-cloak ng-controller="ContactCtrl"{{end}}

{{define "content"}}
<main>
  <h1>Contact us</h1>
</main>
{{end}}

engine.go

package template

import (
	"fmt"
	htmltemplate "html/template"
	"log"
	"path/filepath"
	"strings"
	texttemplate "text/template"
)

type Engine interface {
	LoadHTMLTemplate(templatePath string, funcs []htmltemplate.FuncMap) (*htmltemplate.Template, error)
	LoadTextTemplate(templatePath string, funcs []texttemplate.FuncMap) (*texttemplate.Template, error)
}

// funcs that the Engine uses. could be made more flexible

var templateFuncs = []htmltemplate.FuncMap{
	htmltemplate.FuncMap{
		"add":           add,
		"safeHTML":      safeHTML,
		"safeHTMLAttr":  safeHTMLAttr,
		"safeJS":        safeJS,
		"safeJSStr":     safeJSStr,
		"safeURL":       safeURL,
		"toLower":       strings.ToLower,
		"ng":            ngFilter,
		"requestScheme": requestScheme,
		"nl2br":         nl2br,
	},
}

func NewEngine(
	sharedTemplates []string,
	autoReload bool,
) Engine {
	return &engine{
		templateFuncs:   templateFuncs,
		sharedTemplates: sharedTemplates,
		autoReload:      autoReload,
	}
}

type engine struct {
	htmlTemplates   map[string]*htmltemplate.Template
	textTemplates   map[string]*texttemplate.Template
	templateFuncs   []htmltemplate.FuncMap
	sharedTemplates []string
	autoReload      bool
}

func (e *engine) LoadHTMLTemplate(templatePath string, funcs []htmltemplate.FuncMap) (*htmltemplate.Template, error) {
	if e.htmlTemplates == nil {
		e.htmlTemplates = make(map[string]*htmltemplate.Template)
	}

	fullTemplatePath := templatePath

	t, ok := e.htmlTemplates[fullTemplatePath]

	if e.autoReload || !ok {
		templateName := filepath.Base(fullTemplatePath)

		t = htmltemplate.New(templateName)
		for _, f := range e.templateFuncs {
			t.Funcs(f)
		}
		for _, f := range funcs {
			t.Funcs(f)
		}

		templates := []string{
			fullTemplatePath,
		}
		templates = append(templates, e.sharedTemplates...)
		if _, err := t.ParseFiles(templates...); err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}

		e.htmlTemplates[fullTemplatePath] = t

		log.Printf("compiled template %q", fullTemplatePath)
	}

	return t, nil
}

func (e *engine) LoadTextTemplate(templatePath string, funcs []texttemplate.FuncMap) (*texttemplate.Template, error) {
	if e.textTemplates == nil {
		e.textTemplates = make(map[string]*texttemplate.Template)
	}

	fullTemplatePath := templatePath

	t, ok := e.textTemplates[fullTemplatePath]

	if e.autoReload || !ok {
		templateName := filepath.Base(fullTemplatePath)

		t = texttemplate.New(templateName)
		for _, f := range funcs {
			t.Funcs(f)
		}
		if _, err := t.ParseFiles(fullTemplatePath); err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}

		e.textTemplates[fullTemplatePath] = t

		log.Printf("compiled text template %q", fullTemplatePath)
	}

	return t, nil
}

example.go

package main

func main() {
  templateEngine := template.NewEngine(
		[]string{
			"app/templates/layout.html",
		},
		appConfig.Env == "dev",
	)
	// ...
	router.NewRoute().Methods("HEAD", "GET").PathPrefix("/sitemap.xml").Handler(http.HandlerFunc(func(res http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
		sitemapHandler(
			res,
			req,
			template.NewRenderer(
				res,
				req,
				templateEngine,
				appConfig.TemplatesDir,
				templateGlobals(req, appConfig),
			),
		)
	}))
	router.NewRoute().Methods("HEAD", "GET").PathPrefix("/contact").Handler(http.HandlerFunc(func(res http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
		contactHandler(
			res,
			req,
			template.NewRenderer(
				res,
				req,
				templateEngine,
				appConfig.TemplatesDir,
				templateGlobals(req, appConfig),
			),
		)
	}))
}

func templateGlobals(req *http.Request, appConfig AppConfig) map[string]interface{} {
	data := map[string]interface{}{
	  // maybe the renderer should pass request instead of doing it via globals, not sure
		"request": req,
		"env":     appConfig.Env,
		"debug":   appConfig.Debug,
		"now":     time.Now(),
	}

	return data
}

func sitemapHandler(
	res http.ResponseWriter,
	req *http.Request,
	render template.Renderer,
) {
	entries := []map[string]interface{}{
		map[string]interface{}{
			"path": "/contact",
		},
	}
	res.Header().Set("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8")
	if err := render.Text("sitemap.xml", map[string]interface{}{
		"entries": entries,
	}); err != nil {
		res.WriteHeader(http.StatusInternalServerError)
		return
	}
}

func contactHandler(
	res http.ResponseWriter,
	req *http.Request,
	render template.Renderer,
) {
	if err := render.HTML("contact.html", map[string]interface{}{}); err != nil {
		// ...
		return
	}
}

funcs.go

package template

import (
	htmltemplate "html/template"
	"net/http"
	"strings"
)

// example funcs that the Engine uses. could be made more flexible

func add(a, b int) int {
	return a + b
}

func safeHTML(arg interface{}) htmltemplate.HTML {
	return htmltemplate.HTML(arg.(string))
}

func safeHTMLAttr(arg interface{}) htmltemplate.HTMLAttr {
	return htmltemplate.HTMLAttr(arg.(string))
}

func safeJS(arg interface{}) htmltemplate.JS {
	return htmltemplate.JS(arg.(string))
}

func safeJSStr(arg interface{}) htmltemplate.JSStr {
	return htmltemplate.JSStr(arg.(string))
}

func safeURL(arg interface{}) htmltemplate.URL {
	return htmltemplate.URL(arg.(string))
}

func requestScheme(req *http.Request) string {
	if req.TLS != nil {
		return "https"
	}
	return "http"
}

func ngFilter(arg string) string {
	return "{{" + arg + "}}"
}

func nl2br(arg string) htmltemplate.HTML {
	return htmltemplate.HTML(strings.Replace(arg, "\n", "<br>", -1))
}

layout.html

{{define "layout"}}<!doctype html>
<html lang="en" {{template `htmlAttrs` .}}>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>{{template "headTitle" .}}</title>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
{{template "metaRobots" .}}
{{template "headExtraScripts" .}}
</head>
<body class="{{template `bodyClass` .}}" {{template `bodyAttrs` .}}>
  <header class="container"></header>
  {{template "content" .}}
  <footer></footer>
</body>
</html>
{{end}}

{{define `htmlAttrs`}}{{end}}

{{define "metaRobots"}}{{end}}
{{define "headExtraScripts"}}{{end}}

{{define "bodyClass"}}{{end}}
{{define "bodyAttrs"}}{{end}}

renderer.go

package template

import (
	"bytes"
	"fmt"
	htmltemplate "html/template"
	"net/http"
	"strings"
	texttemplate "text/template"

	"github.com/oxtoacart/bpool"
)

var bufpool *bpool.BufferPool

func init() {
	bufpool = bpool.NewBufferPool(64)
}

type Renderer interface {
	HTML(templatePath string, data map[string]interface{}) error
	Text(templatePath string, data map[string]interface{}) error
}

func NewRenderer(
	res http.ResponseWriter,
	req *http.Request,
	te Engine,
	appTemplatesDir string,
	globals map[string]interface{},
) Renderer {
	return &renderer{
		response:        res,
		request:         req,
		engine:          te,
		appTemplatesDir: appTemplatesDir,
		globals:         globals,
	}
}

type renderer struct {
	response        http.ResponseWriter
	request         *http.Request
	engine          Engine
	appTemplatesDir string
	globals         map[string]interface{}
}

func (r *renderer) HTML(templatePath string, data map[string]interface{}) (err error) {
	defer func() {
		r := recover()
		if r == nil {
			return
		}
		switch t := r.(type) {
		case error:
			err = t
		default:
			panic(r)
		}
	}()

	templatePath = fmt.Sprintf("%s/%s", r.appTemplatesDir, templatePath)
	t, err := r.engine.LoadHTMLTemplate(templatePath, r.funcs())
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	for key, value := range r.globals {
		if _, ok := data[key]; !ok {
			data[key] = value
		}
	}

	b := bufpool.Get()
	defer bufpool.Put(b)
	if err := t.Execute(b, data); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	r.response.Header().Set("Content-Type", "text/html; charset=utf-8")
	b.WriteTo(r.response)
	return nil
}

func (r *renderer) Text(templatePath string, data map[string]interface{}) (err error) {
	defer func() {
		r := recover()
		if r == nil {
			return
		}
		switch t := r.(type) {
		case error:
			err = t
		default:
			panic(r)
		}
	}()

	templatePath = fmt.Sprintf("%s/%s", r.appTemplatesDir, templatePath)
	t, err := r.engine.LoadTextTemplate(templatePath, r.textFuncs())
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	for key, value := range r.globals {
		if _, ok := data[key]; !ok {
			data[key] = value
		}
	}

	b := bufpool.Get()
	defer bufpool.Put(b)
	if err := t.Execute(b, data); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	b.WriteTo(r.response)
	return nil
}

func (r *renderer) funcs() []htmltemplate.FuncMap {
	return []htmltemplate.FuncMap{
		htmltemplate.FuncMap{
			"trimSpace": func(arg string) string {
				return strings.TrimSpace(arg)
			},
			"truncate": func(length int, separator, arg string) string {
				if length >= len(arg) {
					return arg
				}
				b := &bytes.Buffer{}
				b.Write([]byte(arg))
				b.Truncate(length)
				return b.String() + separator
			},
		},
	}
}

func (r *renderer) textFuncs() []texttemplate.FuncMap {
	funcMap := texttemplate.FuncMap{}

	for _, funcs := range r.funcs() {
		for name, f := range funcs {
			funcMap[name] = f
		}
	}

	return []texttemplate.FuncMap{funcMap}
}

sitemap.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  {{$request := .request}}
  {{range $key, $entry := .entries}}
  <url>
    <loc>http://{{$request.Host}}{{$entry.path}}</loc>
  </url>
  {{end}}
</urlset>

Thanks for the feedback, will look into it.

• The reason for catching the panic in the Text and HTML functions is so that I can return an error from the render call. The specific reason being that I want to be able to handle that error case in the handler. True a higher level or middleware could catch the panic and render a generic 500 page (plus a stack in dev), but I originally just felt like the flexibility of knowing that the template render failed was good. May be time to review though. BTW, what's the performance hit? Is it the actual call to recover that must be done every time? From http://blog.golang.org/defer-panic-and-recover During normal execution, a call to recover will return nil and have no other effect. Although I admit that that quote may be out of context performance-wise.
• You're right about the funcs, it needs to be organised better too. Also, I need to find the use case for allowing funcs to be defined on the engine and on the renderer. I think one reason was that you could have dynamic funcs added to a renderer on a handler by handler basis (i.e. needed for some handlers but not all). Again, needs a review.
• I think the buffer pool use came of your article or maybe an SO answer, can't take the credit.

• I can't seem to find the source, but my understanding was that the defer call was the (unavoidable) and slow part. I could be wrong here.
• What's the overhead of passing (say) 20 funcs vs. 5? I'd be curious to know if there's a noticeable response-time bottleneck. Template processing can be crazy slow so you might be right in the value of per-handler funcs (i.e. don't call what you don't need). If you can divorce that from the template loading (which you never want to do in a handler - hits disk!) it'd be ideal, but not sure there's a clear way to do that without a lot of copying (so that the funcmap doesn't mutate the original (clean) template.Template map)
• I think it might be one of mine - I used that exact library. Works well!