CARGO-ADD(1)

📦 version 1.78.0, in ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

🌸 CARGO-ADD(1) — the cargo add page, but make it a group chat 🌸

okay so this is the manual page for cargo-add, straight out of the General Commands Manual section of the Cargo docs. it's the one that puts dependencies into your Cargo.toml manifest file. bestie, it's literally the "hey can you come through" of commands. 💖

✨ 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 🦋

this command can add or modify dependencies. yes, modify too — it's giving main character energy, it does both. 👑

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 no source is specified, then a best effort will be made to select one, including:

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

when you add a package that's already present, the existing entry will be updated with the flags specified. no dupe, just glow-up. ✨

upon 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. so you get receipts. 🧾

💖 OPTIONS 💖

🌈 Source options

🎀 Section options

to avoid unexpected shell expansions, you may use quotes around each target, e.g., --target 'cfg(unix)'. yes bestie, the quotes are load-bearing, do not skip them 🙈

💅 Dependency options

the dependency can be referenced in your library's public API.

Unstable (nightly-only) — https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/unstable.html#public-dependency
  • --no-public — mark the dependency as private.

while you can use the crate in your implementation, it cannot 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 requires the -Z unstable-options flag to enable. see https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/5579 for more information.

🔥 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:
    • 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 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. 😭

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 information 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 information.
  • -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 — 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 🎀 it's CARGO-ADD(1) from the Cargo General Commands Manual — the cargo-add page itself, exactly as it lives in the docs. no cap, every flag accounted for, periodt. 💜

📦 where this page comes from