CARGO-PUBLISH(1)

📦 version 1.91.1, in ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute

🌸 NAME 🌸 (it’s CARGO-PUBLISH(1) from the General Commands Manual, bestie)

cargo-publish — Upload a package to the registry 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

cargo publish [options]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so this command is literally the glow-up button for your crate. It creates a distributable, compressed .crate file with the source code of the package in the current directory and uploads it to a registry. The default registry is <https://crates.io>. No cap, it does these steps:

  1. Performs a few checks, including:
    • Checks the package.publish key in the manifest for restrictions on which registries you are allowed to publish to.
  2. Create a .crate file by following the steps in cargo-package(1).
  3. Upload the crate to the registry. The server will perform additional checks on the crate.
  4. The client will poll waiting for the package to appear in the index, and may timeout. In that case, you will need to check for completion manually. This timeout does not affect the upload.

This command requires you to be authenticated with either the --token option or using cargo-login(1).

See the reference <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/publishing.html> for more details about packaging and publishing.

👑 OPTIONS 👑

💅 Publish Options 💅

  • --dry-run — Perform all checks without uploading.
  • --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.

🌈 Package Selection 🌈

By default, when no package selection options are given, the packages selected depend on the selected manifest file (based on the current working directory if --manifest-path is not given). If the manifest is the root of a workspace then the workspaces default members are selected, otherwise only the package defined by the manifest will be selected.

The default members of a workspace can be set explicitly with the workspace.default-members key in the root manifest. If this is not set, a virtual workspace will include all workspace members (equivalent to passing --workspace), and a non-virtual workspace will include only the root crate itself.

  • -p *spec*…, --package *spec*… — Publish only the specified packages. See cargo-pkgid(1) for the SPEC format. This flag may be specified multiple times and supports common Unix glob patterns like *, ? and []. However, to avoid your shell accidentally expanding glob patterns before Cargo handles them, you must use single quotes or double quotes around each pattern.
  • --workspace — Publish all members in the workspace.
  • --all — Deprecated alias for --workspace.
  • --exclude *SPEC*… — Exclude the specified packages. Must be used in conjunction with the --workspace flag. This flag may be specified multiple times and supports common Unix glob patterns like *, ? and []. However, to avoid your shell accidentally expanding glob patterns before Cargo handles them, you must use single quotes or double quotes around each pattern.

🎀 Compilation Options 🎀

  • --target triple — Publish for the specified target architecture. Flag may be specified multiple times. The default is the host architecture. The general format of the triple is <arch><sub>-<vendor>-<sys>-<abi>.

Possible values:

  • Any supported target in rustc --print target-list.
  • "host-tuple", which will internally be substituted by the host’s target. This can be particularly useful if you’re cross-compiling some crates, and don’t want to specify your host’s machine as a target (for instance, an xtask in a shared project that may be worked on by many hosts).
  • A path to a custom target specification. See Custom Target Lookup Path <https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/targets/custom.html#custom-target-lookup-path> for more information.

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 target in the root of the workspace.

🦋 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.
  • --no-default-features — Do not activate the default feature of the selected packages.

💜 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.
  • --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.

May also be specified with the net.offline config value <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/config.html>.

  • --frozen — Equivalent to specifying both --locked and --offline.
  • --lockfile-path PATH — Changes the path of the lockfile from the default (<workspace_root>/Cargo.lock) to PATH. PATH must end with Cargo.lock (e.g. --lockfile-path /tmp/temporary-lockfile/Cargo.lock). Note that providing --lockfile-path will ignore existing lockfile at the default path, and instead will either use the lockfile from PATH, or write a new lockfile into the provided PATH if it doesn’t exist. This flag can be used to run most commands in read-only directories, writing lockfile into the provided PATH.

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 #14421 <https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/14421>).

✨ Miscellaneous Options ✨

  • -j N, --jobs N — Number of parallel jobs to run. May also be specified 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 maximum number of parallel jobs to the number of logical CPUs plus provided value. 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, rather than 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 publish -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 publish -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>. 🎨 so if you'd rather set your color vibe in a config file instead of typing it every time, bestie, that's literally your option too.

✨ Common Options ✨

These ones? Universal. Every cargo subcommand gets them, and they're lowkey the glue holding your whole workflow together. 🫶

  • +toolchain — okay so if you installed Cargo through rustup, and the first thing you type after cargo starts with a +, Cargo's gonna read that as a rustup toolchain name — like +stable or +nightly. 💅 Want the full tea on how toolchain overrides work? The rustup docs have you: <https://rust-lang.github.io/rustup/overrides.html>.
  • --config KEY=VALUE or PATH — this one overrides a Cargo configuration value, and it's giving ✨main character✨ energy. Your argument should either be in TOML syntax as KEY=VALUE, or just be a path to an extra config file you want loaded. And yes, you can stack this flag as many times as you want — go off. Full details live in 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 it runs anything you asked for. This matters, fr fr: it affects where Cargo looks by default for your project manifest (Cargo.toml), and also which directories get searched when discovering .cargo/config.toml, for example. ⚠️ Important: this option has to come 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 turn on. See issue #10098 <https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/10098> if you want the receipts.
  • -h, --help — prints help information. Your "wait what does this do again" bestie. 🎀
  • -Z flag — these are the unstable, nightly-only flags for Cargo. Wanna see them? Run cargo -Z help and it'll spill all the details. 🌙

🌿 ENVIRONMENT

Cargo reads environment variables, yes it does, and the full list lives in the reference: <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/environment-variables.html>. Go check it out, it's got all the deets. 🦋

💀 EXIT STATUS

Short list, big feelings:

  • 0 — Cargo succeeded. Slay. We ate. 👑
  • 101 — Cargo failed to complete. Not the vibe. 😭

🌈 EXAMPLES

  1. Publish the current package:
cargo publish

That's it. That's the whole move. Go be iconic. ✨

👀 SEE ALSO

And that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 This was the CARGO-PUBLISH(1) manual page, part of the Cargo docs — a classic, a legend, an icon, and honestly? It understood the assignment. 🎀 Mwah, go publish something gorgeous. 🦋✨💅

📦 where this page comes from