I've been doing forks of modules and using replace to use them in my code base extensively. I had 0 problems, it works marvelously.

If you're doing some kind of global find/replace on fork, then something's definitely not right.

Yeah it works fine. It also allows local co-development of the module and its user without waiting for new versions to be noticed

yes that is one approach. it shouldn't be necessary.

You mean this?

https://thewebivore.com/using-replace-in-go-mod-to-point-to-...

yes. now try to go install your application with the replace directive. it will silently replace the code with the original upstream version.