CARGO-INSTALL(1)

📦 version 1.89.0, in ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

okay bestie, welcome to the cargo-install manual page 💖 this is literally where Cargo builds and installs a Rust binary. No cap, it's giving main character energy.

✨ 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 💖

okay so this command is the one that manages Cargo's local set of installed binary crates. Only packages that have executable [[bin]] or [[example]] targets can even be installed, periodt. And every executable gets dropped into the installation root's bin folder. By default, only binaries get installed, not examples, bestie.

The installation root is figured out, in order of precedence:

There are multiple sources you can install a crate from. The default source is crates.io, but the --git, --path, and --registry flags can switch that source up. If the source has more than one package (like crates.io or a git repo with multiple crates), then you have to pass the crate argument to say which crate should be installed.

Crates from crates.io can optionally specify the version they wish to install via the --version flags. 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 these 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. That 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. That 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 can 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.
  • -n, --dry-run — (unstable) Perform all checks without installing.
  • -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/reference/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.
  • --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 🎀

  • --ignore-rust-version — Ignore rust-version specification in packages.
  • --locked — Asserts that the exact same dependencies and versions are used as when the existing Cargo.lock file was originally generated. Cargo will exit with an error when either of the following scenarios arises:
    • The lock file is missing.
    • Cargo attempted to change the lock file due to a different dependency resolution.

It may be used in environments where deterministic builds are desired, such as in CI pipelines.

  • --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.

Also lowkey can be set with the net.offline config value — <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html>. ✨

  • --frozen — bestie, this is literally just --locked and --offline combined. No cap. 💅

✨ Miscellaneous Options ✨

  • -j N, --jobs N — how many parallel jobs to run. You can also set this with the build.jobs config value (<https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html>). Defaults to the number of logical CPUs. If negative, it sets the max number of parallel jobs to the number of logical CPUs plus the value you provided. If a string default is provided, it sets the value back to defaults. Should not be 0. 🚫
  • --keep-going — build as many crates in the dependency graph as possible, instead of aborting the build on the first one that fails to build.

For example if the current package depends on dependencies fails and works, one of which fails to build, cargo install -j1 may or may not build the one that succeeds (depending on which one 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. 🔥

✨ 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>). 🌈

  • --message-format fmt — the output format for diagnostic messages. Can be specified multiple times and consists 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 Cargo itself should 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 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. 🎉
  • 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) 💖

That's the tea, bestie. This was CARGO-INSTALL(1) — now go slay your installs. ✨🫶

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