CARGO-INSTALL(1)

📦 version 1.78.0, in ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

🎀 NAME 🎀

cargo-install — build and install a Rust binary

Hiii bestie 💖 this one's straight outta the General Commands Manual (section 1, obviously, it's giving main character). It's the tool that puts Rust binaries on your machine and then keeps track of them like a good little archivist.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

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

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so. This command manages Cargo's local set of installed binary crates. Only packages that have executable [[bin]] or [[example]] targets can be installed, and all executables get dropped into the installation root's bin folder. By default only binaries are installed, not examples — no examples invited to the party 🙈.

The installation root gets decided by checking these in order of precedence:

There are multiple sources a crate can be installed from. The default source location is crates.io, but the --git, --path, and --registry flags can change that source. If the source has more than one package in it (like, say, crates.io, or a git repo with multiple crates), then you have to pass the crate argument to say which crate you want. No crate argument = Cargo doesn't know who you're talking about, bestie.

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.

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.

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.

🧚 Dealing with the Lockfile 🧚

By default, the Cargo.lock file that is included with the package will be ignored. This means 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. 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.

🦋 Configuration Discovery 🦋

This command operates on system or user level, not project level. Which means 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.
  • --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.
  • --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 let you 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.
  • --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.
  • --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.

okay that's part 1 done, don't go anywhere bestie, there's more 👀

…and plot twist, you can also set the whole offline vibe with the net.offline config value, which lives over here: 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). By default it's the number of logical CPUs on your machine. If you give it a negative number, it sets the max parallel jobs to the number of logical CPUs plus the value you handed it. If you pass a string default, it resets the value back to the defaults. And do not set it to 0, okay? Just don't.
  • --keep-going — build as many crates in the dependency graph as possible instead of slamming the brakes the second one of them fails. Iconic resilience behavior.

Like, say the current package depends on two dependencies, one that fails to build and one that works. With cargo install -j1, it may or may not build the one that succeeds — it's giving chaos, it depends on which of the two builds Cargo decided to run first 🙈 — whereas cargo install -j1 --keep-going would definitely run both builds, even if the one it ran first fails.

🌈 Display Options 🌈

  • -v, --verbose — verbose output, pls. Say it twice and you get "very verbose" output, which includes extra stuff like dependency warnings and build script output 👀. You can also set this with the term.verbose config value (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html).
  • -q, --quiet — do not print cargo log messages. Silence, but make it fashion. You can also set this 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, bestie:
    • auto (the default): automatically detect if your terminal even supports color.
    • always: always display colors, no matter what. 🌈
    • never: never display colors. periodt.

You can also set this 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 pass this multiple times, and it's made of comma-separated values. Valid values:
    • human (the 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. Check the reference for the deets: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/external-tools.html#json-messages. Conflicts with human and short.
    • json-diagnostic-short: make sure the rendered field of JSON messages contains the "short" rendering from rustc. Cannot be used with human or short.
    • json-diagnostic-rendered-ansi: make sure the rendered field of JSON messages contains embedded ANSI color codes so it respects rustc's default color scheme. Cannot be used with human or short.
    • json-render-diagnostics: tells Cargo to not include rustc diagnostics in the JSON messages it prints, and instead have Cargo itself render the JSON diagnostics coming from rustc. Cargo's own JSON diagnostics and the others coming from rustc are still emitted. Cannot be used with human or short.

🫶 Common Options 🫶

  • +toolchain — if Cargo was installed with rustup and the first argument to cargo starts with +, it gets interpreted as a rustup toolchain name (things like +stable or +nightly). Peep the rustup docs for how toolchain overrides work: https://rust-lang.github.io/rustup/overrides.html.
  • --config KEY=VALUE or PATH — overrides a Cargo configuration value. The argument should be in TOML syntax as KEY=VALUE, or given as a path to an extra configuration file. You can pass this flag multiple times, queen. See the command-line overrides section: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html#command-line-overrides.
  • -C PATH — changes the current working directory before running any of the specified operations. This affects stuff like where cargo looks by default for the project manifest (Cargo.toml), and the directories it searches to discover .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 it needs the -Z unstable-options flag to enable it (see #10098 → https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/10098). 💀
  • -h, --help — prints help information. the classic.
  • -Z flag — unstable (nightly-only) flags for Cargo. Run cargo -Z help for the details.

🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸

See the reference (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/environment-variables.html) for the deets on the environment variables Cargo reads. iykyk.

🎀 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, bestie — this was CARGO-INSTALL(1), main character of the cargo manual, and honestly? she ate. go install something cute 💅💖

📦 where this page comes from