CARGO-ADD(1)

📦 version 1.77.2, in ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

✨ cargo-add(1) ✨

hiii bestie, welcome to the manual page for cargo-add(1) — it lives in the General Commands Manual section, and it's genuinely one of the most useful commands in the whole Cargo universe. no cap.

🌸 NAME 🌸

cargo-add — add dependencies to a Cargo.toml manifest file 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

cargo add [options] crate…
cargo add [options] --path path
cargo add [options] --git url [crate…]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so this command can add dependencies, and it can also modify them. it's giving main character energy for your manifest file.

the source for the dependency can be specified with:

  • crate@version: fetch from a registry with a version constraint of "version"
  • --path path: fetch from the specified path
  • --git url: pull from a git repo at url

if you don't specify a source, Cargo will do a best-effort thing and pick one for you, including:

  • existing dependencies in other tables (like dev-dependencies)
  • workspace members
  • latest release in the registry

when you add a package that's already there, the existing entry gets updated with the flags you specified. so it's not gonna duplicate anything, it's just gonna glow it up.

upon a successful invocation, the enabled (+) and disabled (-) features — https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/features.html — of the specified dependency will be listed in the command's output. periodt.

💜 OPTIONS 💜

🌈 Source options 🌈

🌸 Section options 🌸

to avoid unexpected shell expansions, you may use quotes around each target, like --target 'cfg(unix)'. seriously, quote it, bestie 😭

🎀 Dependency options 🎀

Unstable (nightly-only): https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/unstable.html#public-dependency
  • --no-public — mark the dependency as private. you can still use the crate in your implementation, but it can't be referenced in your public API.
Unstable (nightly-only): https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/unstable.html#public-dependency
this option is unstable and available only on the nightly channel (https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/appendix-07-nightly-rust.html) and it requires the -Z unstable-options flag to enable. see https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/5579 for more info.

⭐ Display Options ⭐

  • -v, --verbose — use verbose output. may be specified twice for "very verbose" output, which includes extra output such as dependency warnings and build script output. may also be specified with the term.verbose config value. (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html)
  • -q, --quiet — do not print cargo log messages. may also be specified with the term.quiet config value. (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html)
  • --color when — control when colored output is used. valid values are:
    • auto (default): automatically detect if color support is available on the terminal.
    • always: always display colors.
    • never: never display colors.

may also be specified with the term.color config value. (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html)

🫶 Manifest Options 🫶

  • --manifest-path path — path to the Cargo.toml file. by default, Cargo searches for the Cargo.toml file in the current directory or any parent directory.
  • -p spec, --package spec — add dependencies to only the specified package.
  • --frozen, --locked — either of these flags requires that the Cargo.lock file is up-to-date. if the lock file is missing, or if it needs to be updated, Cargo will exit with an error. the --frozen flag also prevents Cargo from attempting to access the network to determine if it's out-of-date.

these may be used in environments where you wanna assert that the Cargo.lock file is up-to-date (like a CI build) or where you wanna avoid network access.

  • --offline — prevents Cargo from accessing the network for any reason. without this flag, Cargo will stop with an error if it needs to access the network and the network isn't available. with this flag, Cargo will attempt to proceed without the network if possible.
beware that this may result in different dependency resolution than online mode. Cargo will restrict itself to crates that are downloaded locally, even if there might be a newer version as indicated in the local copy of the index. see the cargo-fetch(1) command to download dependencies before going offline.

may also be specified with the net.offline config value. (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html)

👑 Common Options 👑

  • +toolchain — if Cargo has been installed with rustup, and the first argument to cargo begins with +, it will be interpreted as a rustup toolchain name (such as +stable or +nightly). see the rustup documentation (https://rust-lang.github.io/rustup/overrides.html) for more info about how toolchain overrides work.
  • --config KEY=VALUE or PATH — overrides a Cargo configuration value. the argument should be in TOML syntax of KEY=VALUE, or provided as a path to an extra configuration file. this flag may be specified multiple times. see the command-line overrides section (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html#command-line-overrides) for more info.
  • -C PATH — changes the current working directory before executing any specified operations. this affects things like where cargo looks by default for the project manifest (Cargo.toml), as well as the directories searched for discovering .cargo/config.toml, for example. this option must appear before the command name, for example cargo -C path/to/my-project build.
this option is only available on the nightly channel (https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/appendix-07-nightly-rust.html) and requires the -Z unstable-options flag to enable (see #10098 — https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/10098).
  • -h, --help — prints help information.
  • -Z flag — unstable (nightly-only) flags to Cargo. run cargo -Z help for details.

💀 ENVIRONMENT 💀

see the reference at https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/environment-variables.html for details on environment variables that Cargo reads.

🔥 EXIT STATUS 🔥

  • 0: Cargo succeeded. slay.
  • 101: Cargo failed to complete. 😭

🌟 EXAMPLES 🌟

  1. Add regex as a dependency
cargo add regex
  1. Add trybuild as a dev-dependency
cargo add --dev trybuild
  1. Add an older version of nom as a dependency
cargo add nom@5
  1. Add support for serializing data structures to json with derives
cargo add serde serde_json -F serde/derive
  1. Add windows as a platform specific dependency on cfg(windows)
cargo add windows --target 'cfg(windows)'

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

cargo(1), cargo-remove(1)

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this was cargo-add(1) from the General Commands Manual — go forth and add some crates, you absolute icon 💖✨🎀

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