Gorilla mux optional query values

I would just register your handler twice.

router.Path("/articles/{id:[0-9]+}").
    Queries("key", "{[0-9]*?}").
    HandlerFunc(YourHandler).
    Name("YourHandler")

router.Path("/articles/{id:[0-9]+}").HandlerFunc(YourHandler)

Here is a working program to demonstrate. Notice that I am using r.FormValue to get the query parameter.

Note: make sure you have an up to date version go get -u github.com/gorilla/mux since a bug of query params not getting added the built URLs was fixed recently.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "net/http"

    "github.com/gorilla/mux"
)

var router = mux.NewRouter()

func main() {
    router.Path("/articles/{id:[0-9]+}").Queries("key", "{key}").HandlerFunc(YourHandler).Name("YourHandler")
    router.Path("/articles/{id:[0-9]+}").HandlerFunc(YourHandler)

    if err := http.ListenAndServe(":9000", router); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

func YourHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    id := mux.Vars(r)["id"]
    key := r.FormValue("key")

    u, err := router.Get("YourHandler").URL("id", id, "key", key)
    if err != nil {
        http.Error(w, err.Error(), 500)
        return
    }

    // Output:
    // /articles/10?key=[key]
    w.Write([]byte(u.String()))
}