CARGO-INSTALL(1)

📦 version 1.77.2, in ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

✨ CARGO-INSTALL ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the cargo-install page from your General Commands Manual 💖 this one is a whole journey so grab a snack 🍓

🌸 NAME 🌸

cargo-install — Build and install a Rust binary 🦋

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

cargo install [options] crate[@version]…
cargo install [options] --path path
cargo install [options] --git url [crate…]
cargo install [options] --list

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So this command is literally the manager of Cargo's local set of installed binary crates. It's giving girlbossing your bin folder. 👑

Only packages that have executable [[bin]] or [[example]] targets can even be installed, okay? And all executables get dropped into the installation root's bin folder. By default it's only binaries, not examples — examples need an invite. 🙈

The installation root is determined, in order of precedence:

There are multiple sources you can install a crate from, and the default source location is crates.io, but the --git, --path, and --registry flags can change that source up. And if the source contains more than one package (like crates.io, or a git repo with multiple crates in it — the audacity 😭), then the crate argument is required to say which crate should actually be installed.

Crates from crates.io can optionally specify the version they wish to install via the --version flags, and similarly packages from git repositories can optionally specify the branch, tag, or revision that should be installed. If a crate has multiple binaries, the --bin argument can selectively install only one of them, and if you'd rather install examples the --example argument can be used as well. options on options on options, we love to see it 💅

If the package is already installed, Cargo will reinstall it if the installed version does not appear to be up-to-date. If any of the following values change, then Cargo will reinstall the package:

  • The package version and source.
  • The set of binary names installed.
  • The chosen features.
  • The profile (--profile).
  • The target (--target).

Installing with --path will always build and install, unless there are conflicting binaries from another package. The --force flag may be used to force Cargo to always reinstall the package. no cap, sometimes you just gotta force it 💪

If the source is crates.io or --git then by default the crate will be built in a temporary target directory. To avoid this, the target directory can be specified by setting the CARGO_TARGET_DIR environment variable to a relative path. In particular, this can be useful for caching build artifacts on continuous integration systems. (CI girlies, this one's for you 🫶)

🔒 Dealing with the Lockfile 🔒

By default, the Cargo.lock file that is included with the package will be ignored. This means that Cargo will recompute which versions of dependencies to use, possibly using newer versions that have been released since the package was published. 😳

The --locked flag can be used to force Cargo to use the packaged Cargo.lock file if it is available. This may be useful for ensuring reproducible builds, to use the exact same set of dependencies that were available when the package was published. It may also be useful if a newer version of a dependency is published that no longer builds on your system, or has other problems. The downside to using --locked is that you will not receive any fixes or updates to any dependency. trade-offs, bestie, always trade-offs ⚖️

Note that Cargo did not start publishing Cargo.lock files until version 1.37, which means packages published with prior versions will not have a Cargo.lock file available. fr fr, ancient history 💀

🧭 Configuration Discovery 🧭

This command operates on system or user level, not project level. This means that the local configuration discovery (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html#hierarchical-structure) is ignored. Instead, the configuration discovery begins at $CARGO_HOME/config.toml.

If the package is installed with --path $PATH, the local configuration will be used, beginning discovery at $PATH/.cargo/config.toml. 🦋

✨ OPTIONS ✨

📦 Install Options 📦

  • --vers version, --version version — Specify a version to install. This may be a version requirement (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/specifying-dependencies.html), like ~1.2, to have Cargo select the newest version from the given requirement. If the version does not have a requirement operator (such as ^ or ~), then it must be in the form MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, and will install exactly that version; it is not treated as a caret requirement like Cargo dependencies are. so specific of it 💅
  • --git url — Git URL to install the specified crate from.
  • --branch branch — Branch to use when installing from git.
  • --tag tag — Tag to use when installing from git.
  • --rev sha — Specific commit to use when installing from git.
  • --path path — Filesystem path to local crate to install from.
  • --list — List all installed packages and their versions. 📋
  • -f, --force — Force overwriting existing crates or binaries. This can be used if a package has installed a binary with the same name as another package. This is also useful if something has changed on the system that you want to rebuild with, such as a newer version of rustc.
  • --no-track — By default, Cargo keeps track of the installed packages with a metadata file stored in the installation root directory. This flag tells Cargo not to use or create that file. With this flag, Cargo will refuse to overwrite any existing files unless the --force flag is used. This also disables Cargo's ability to protect against multiple concurrent invocations of Cargo installing at the same time. chaos mode, honestly 😭
  • --bin name… — Install only the specified binary.
  • --bins — Install all binaries. This is the default behavior. 👑
  • --example name… — Install only the specified example.
  • --examples — Install all examples.
  • --root dir — Directory to install packages into.
  • --registry registry — Name of the registry to use. Registry names are defined in Cargo config files (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html). If not specified, the default registry is used, which is defined by the registry.default config key which defaults to crates-io.
  • --index index — The URL of the registry index to use.

🌈 Feature Selection 🌈

The feature flags allow you to control which features are enabled. When no feature options are given, the default feature is activated for every selected package. ✨

See the features documentation (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/features.html#command-line-feature-options) for more details.

  • -F features, --features features — Space or comma separated list of features to activate. Features of workspace members may be enabled with package-name/feature-name syntax. This flag may be specified multiple times, which enables all specified features.
  • --all-features — Activate all available features of all selected packages. literally all of them, go off 💅
  • --no-default-features — Do not activate the default feature of the selected packages.

⚙️ Compilation Options ⚙️

  • --target triple — Install for the given architecture. The default is the host architecture. The general format of the triple is <arch><sub>-<vendor>-<sys>-<abi>. Run rustc --print target-list for a list of supported targets.

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

Note that specifying this flag makes Cargo run in a different mode where the target artifacts are placed in a separate directory. See the build cache (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/guide/build-cache.html) documentation for more details.

  • --target-dir directory — Directory for all generated artifacts and intermediate files. May also be specified with the CARGO_TARGET_DIR environment variable, or the build.target-dir config value (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html). Defaults to a new temporary folder located in the temporary directory of the platform.

When using --path, by default it will use target directory in the workspace of the local crate unless --target-dir is specified.

  • --debug — Build with the dev profile instead of the release profile. See also the --profile option for choosing a specific profile by name.
  • --profile name — Install with the given profile. See the reference (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/profiles.html) for more details on profiles.
  • --ignore-rust-version — Install the target even if the selected Rust compiler is older than the required Rust version as configured in the project's rust-version field. living dangerously, love that for you 🙈
  • --timings=fmts — Output information how long each compilation takes, and track concurrency information over time. Accepts an optional comma-separated list of output formats; --timings without an argument will default to --timings=html. Specifying an output format (rather than the default) is unstable and requires -Zunstable-options. Valid output formats:
    • html (unstable, requires -Zunstable-options): Write a human-readable file cargo-timing.html to the target/cargo-timings directory with a report of the compilation. Also write a report to the same directory with a timestamp in the filename if you want to look at older runs. HTML output is suitable for human consumption only, and does not provide machine-readable timing data.
    • json (unstable, requires -Zunstable-options): Emit machine-readable JSON information about timing information.

📜 Manifest Options 📜

  • --frozen, --locked — Either of these flags requires that the Cargo.lock file is up-to-date. If the lock file is missing, or 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 is out-of-date.

These may be used in environments where you want to assert that the Cargo.lock file is up-to-date (such as a CI build) or want to 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 is not 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. airplane mode but make it dependencies ✈️

…and yeah, that whole net.offline thing also lives in the config file, over at <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html> 💅

✨ Miscellaneous Options ✨

  • -j N, --jobs N — how many jobs you wanna run in parallel, bestie. You can also set this with the build.jobs config value <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html>. Defaults to however many logical CPUs you got. If it's negative, it sets the max parallel jobs to (number of logical CPUs + the value you gave). If you pass a string default, it sets the value back to defaults. And fr, it should not be 0.
  • --keep-going — build as many crates in the dependency graph as possible instead of straight up aborting the whole build the second one of them fails. Like, dramatic much? 😭

Example time, because this one's a little sneaky: if the current package depends on dependencies that fail and work — one of which fails to build — then cargo install -j1 may or may not build the one that succeeds (it literally depends on which of the two builds Cargo picked to run first 🙈), whereas cargo install -j1 --keep-going would definitely run both builds, even if the one run first fails. Iconic behaviour, honestly.

🌈 Display Options 🌈

  • -v, --verbose — use verbose output. Pass it twice for "very verbose" output, which throws in extra stuff like dependency warnings and build script output. Can also be set with the term.verbose config value <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html>.
  • -q, --quiet — do not print cargo log messages. Silence, queen. 🤫 Can also be set with the term.quiet config value <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html>.
  • --color when — controls when colored output gets used. Valid values:
    • auto (default): automatically detect if color support is available on the terminal.
    • always: always display colors. 💅
    • never: never display colors.

Can also be set with the term.color config value <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html>.

  • --message-format fmt — the output format for diagnostic messages. You can specify it multiple times and it's made of comma-separated values. Valid values:
    • human (default): display in a human-readable text format. Conflicts with short and json.
    • short: emit shorter, human-readable text messages. Conflicts with human and json.
    • json: emit JSON messages to stdout. See the reference <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/external-tools.html#json-messages> for more details. Conflicts with human and short.
    • json-diagnostic-short: ensure the rendered field of JSON messages contains the "short" rendering from rustc. Cannot be used with human or short.
    • json-diagnostic-rendered-ansi: ensure the rendered field of JSON messages contains embedded ANSI color codes for respecting rustc's default color scheme. Cannot be used with human or short.
    • json-render-diagnostics: instruct Cargo to not include rustc diagnostics in JSON messages printed, but instead have Cargo itself render the JSON diagnostics coming from rustc. Cargo's own JSON diagnostics and others coming from rustc are still emitted. Cannot be used with human or short.

👑 Common Options 👑

  • +toolchain — if Cargo got installed with rustup, and the first argument to cargo starts with +, it gets interpreted as a rustup toolchain name (like +stable or +nightly). See the rustup documentation <https://rust-lang.github.io/rustup/overrides.html> for more info on 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 given 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 stuff like where cargo looks by default for the project manifest (Cargo.toml), and the directories searched for discovering .cargo/config.toml, for example. This option must appear before the command name, like cargo -C path/to/my-project build.
Heads up bestie 🚨 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 <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/environment-variables.html> for details on environment variables that Cargo reads. It's giving "go read the docs" but like, in a loving way 🫶

💖 EXIT STATUS 💖

  • 0: Cargo succeeded. slay ✨
  • 101: Cargo failed to complete. 💀

🦋 EXAMPLES 🦋

  1. Install or upgrade a package from crates.io:
cargo install ripgrep
  1. Install or reinstall the package in the current directory:
cargo install --path .
  1. View the list of installed packages:
cargo install --list

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

cargo(1), cargo-uninstall(1), cargo-search(1), cargo-publish(1)

And that's the whole page, babe 💜 this was CARGO-INSTALL(1) — the Cargo manual, section 1, straight from the Cargo source/docs. No cap, you're now lowkey a cargo install expert. Go install something cute 🎀

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