I always fall back on this pattern when the return values need to be used further down:

  foo, err := doThing(bar)
  if err != nil {
    // handle error
  }
  foo2, err := doThing(bar)
  if err != nil {
    // handle error
  }

Only one value in a multi-valued assignment has to be undeclared to use the short variable declaration operator (:=). If the variable already exists in the current scope and the type matches, it will get reused.

https://play.golang.org/p/qo141lT-Jjp