CARGO-YANK(1)

🎀 NAME 🎀

okay so this is cargo-yank, the manual page for the cargo subcommand that removes a pushed crate from the index. That's it, that's the whole job. 💅

It lives in the General Commands Manual, and yes bestie, this is CARGO-YANK(1) — the one and only. 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

cargo yank [options] crate@version
cargo yank [options] --version version [crate]

Two ways to say the same thing, pick your fighter. 🫶

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So here's the tea: the yank command removes a previously published crate's version from the server's index. But — and this is important, don't panic — this command does not delete any data. The crate is still totally available for download via the registry's download link. Nothing is gone, it's just... unlisted. It's giving "soft launch, then private story." 😭

Cargo will not use a yanked version for any new project or checkout without a pre-existing lockfile, and it will generate an error if there are no longer any compatible versions for your crate. So like, be careful, fr fr. 💀

This command requires you to be authenticated, either with the --token option or by using cargo-login(1). No auth, no yank. Periodt.

If the crate name is not specified, it will use the package name from the current directory. Convenient! ✨

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💫 How yank works 💫

Okay let's do a little scenario, stay with me. Say the foo crate published version 1.5.0, and another crate bar declared a dependency on version foo = "1.5". Now foo releases a new — but not semver compatible — version 2.0.0, and finds a critical issue with 1.5.0. If 1.5.0 is yanked, no new project or checkout without an existing lockfile will be able to use crate bar, because it relies on 1.5. Big yikes. 😬

In this case, the maintainers of foo should first publish a semver compatible version such as 1.5.1 prior to yanking 1.5.0, so that bar and all projects that depend on bar will continue to work. Order of operations matters, bestie. 🔥

As another example, consider a crate bar with published versions 1.5.0, 1.5.1, 1.5.2, 2.0.0 and 3.0.0. Here's which versions cargo could use in the absence of a lockfile for different SemVer requirements, following a given release being yanked (the original lays this out as a table, I'm giving it to you as a list because tables are not the vibe here 👑):

• Yanked version 1.5.0:
  • bar = "1.5.0" → Use either 1.5.1 or 1.5.2
  • bar = "=1.5.0" → Return Error
  • bar = "2.0.0" → Use 2.0.0
• Yanked version 1.5.1:
  • bar = "1.5.0" → Use either 1.5.0 or 1.5.2
  • bar = "=1.5.0" → Use 1.5.0
  • bar = "2.0.0" → Use 2.0.0
• Yanked version 2.0.0:
  • bar = "1.5.0" → Use either 1.5.0, 1.5.1 or 1.5.2
  • bar = "=1.5.0" → Use 1.5.0
  • bar = "2.0.0" → Return Error

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🌈 When to yank 🌈

Crates should only be yanked in exceptional circumstances. Like: an accidental publish, an unintentional SemVer breakage, or a significantly broken and unusable crate. That's the list, don't get creative. 🙈

In the case of security vulnerabilities, RustSec (https://rustsec.org/) is typically a less disruptive mechanism to inform users and encourage them to upgrade, and it avoids the possibility of significant downstream disruption irrespective of susceptibility to the vulnerability in question. Translation: RustSec is the gentler path, lowkey. 🧚

A common workflow is to yank a crate having already published a semver compatible version, to reduce the probability of preventing dependent crates from compiling. Protect the downstream, always. 💜

When addressing copyright, licensing, or personal data issues with a published crate, simply yanking it may not suffice. In such cases, contact the maintainers of the registry you used. For crates.io, refer to their policies (https://crates.io/policies) and contact them at help@crates.io. Do not try to solve legal stuff with a CLI flag, bestie. 😭

If credentials have been leaked, the recommended course of action is to revoke them immediately. Once a crate has been published, it is impossible to determine if the leaked credentials have been copied. Yanking the crate only prevents new users from downloading it, but cannot stop those who have already downloaded it from keeping or even spreading the leaked credentials. That one's serious, no jokes. 🫶

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

🍓 Yank Options 🍓

• --vers version, --version version — The version to yank or un-yank. Pick your drama. ✨
• --undo — Undo a yank, putting a version back into the index. The "jk lol" of flags. 🦋
• --token token — API token to use when authenticating. This overrides the token stored in the credentials file (which is created by cargo-login(1)).

Cargo config (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html) environment variables can be used to override the tokens stored in the credentials file. The token for crates.io may be specified with the CARGO_REGISTRY_TOKEN environment variable. Tokens for other registries may be specified with environment variables of the form CARGO_REGISTRIES_NAME_TOKEN where NAME is the name of the registry in all capital letters.

• --index index — The URL of the registry index to use. 🔥
• --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. Iconic default behavior, honestly. 👑

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🌟 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). Two -vs is the main character energy of verbosity. 💅
• -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). Shhh era. 🤫
• --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).

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💜 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. The classic. 🫶
• -Z flag — Unstable (nightly-only) flags to Cargo. Run cargo -Z help for details. Nightly girlies only. ⭐

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🌱 ENVIRONMENT 🌱

See the reference (https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/environment-variables.html) for details on environment variables that Cargo reads. Yeah bestie, there's a whole list over there. 📚

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🎯 EXIT STATUS 🎯

• 0: Cargo succeeded. 🎉
• 101: Cargo failed to complete. 💀

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🌼 EXAMPLES 🌼

1. Yank a crate from the index:

cargo yank foo@1.0.7

Slay, that's the whole thing. ✨

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

cargo(1), cargo-login(1), cargo-publish(1)

Go read those too, they're the friend group. 🫶

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and that's a wrap on CARGO-YANK(1) from the General Commands Manual, bestie — thanks for reading my little manual-page essay, ily, go yank responsibly 💖🎀🦋🌸💅👑🌈⭐🍓🧚💜