Regarding the issue of determining the reasonable width of flexible formwork walls along the goaf of shallow buried coal seams. Taking the 22103 working face of Liuta Coal Mine as the engineering background, this study adopts theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and on-site industrial testing methods to determine the reasonable width of flexible formwork walls for shallow buried coal seam along the goaf. The results show that under shallow burial conditions, the reasonable width range of the flexible formwork wall along the goaf is 0.8-1.6 m, and as the width of the formwork wall increases, the bearing capacity of the flexible formwork wall gradually increases, and the deformation of the surrounding rock of the roadway gradually decreases; When the width of the flexible formwork wall reaches 1.2 m, the bearing capacity inside the flexible formwork wall increases significantly, and the subsidence of the roadway roof, the bulging of the bottom, the lateral movement of the flexible formwork wall, and the lateral movement of the coal wall also decrease significantly, effectively reducing the deformation of the surrounding rock system along the goaf and meeting the safety production needs of coal mines. On site industrial tests have shown that a reasonable width of the flexible formwork wall has a significant effect on controlling the stability of the surrounding rock along the goaf.