Build, cache, and run CLI tools scoped in Cargo.toml rather than installing globally. Stop the version drifts across your team, keep it all in sync within your project!

• Overview
• Install
• Usage
  • cargo bin CRATE
  • cargo bin --sync-aliases
  • cargo bin --install
  • Library
• License

Installing tooling globally when working in teams or on CI is a silly problem to manage. cargo-run-bin builds, caches, and executes binaries from their locked down versions in Cargo.toml. This acts similarly to npm run and gomodrun, and allows your teams to always be running the same tooling versions.

For command lines that extend cargo such as cargo-nextest, run-bin will create and manage cargo aliases to allow using cargo extensions without any changes to your command line scripts! cargo-run-bin gets out of your way, and you'll forget you're even using it!

Minimum Rust Version: 1.70.0

Run the following to install cargo-run-bin, and ignore the cache directory in your project.

cargo install cargo-run-bin
cd my/rust/project
echo ".bin/" >> .gitignore

You can also use it as a library within your existing logic.

[dependencies]
cargo-run-bin = { version = "1.7.2", default-features = false }

If your distribution has packaged cargo-run-bin, you can use that package for the installation.

You can use pacman to install from the extra repository:

pacman -S cargo-run-bin

cargo-run-bin is available for Alpine Edge. It can be installed via apk after enabling the testing repository.

apk add cargo-run-bin

cargo-run-bin keeps track of the binaries and their versions from within Cargo.toml under the [package.metadata.bin]. table. A quick example taken from this repo:

[package.metadata.bin]
cargo-binstall = { version = "1.1.2" }
cargo-nextest = { version = "0.9.57", locked = true }
dprint = { version = "0.30.3" }
cargo-mobile2 = { version = "0.5.2", bins = ["cargo-android", "cargo-mobile"], locked = true }

Or if you're setting up in a workspace:

[workspace.metadata.bin]
cargo-binstall = { version = "1.1.2" }
cargo-nextest = { version = "0.9.57", locked = true }

If you're a fan of prebuilt binaries and fast downloads, run-bin will use cargo-binstall if it's installed globally, or configured within [package.metadata.bin], rather than building tools from source.

Taking an example of dprint, running cargo bin dprint --help with install/build and cache the dprint binary with the specified version in Cargo.toml. All future executions will run instantly without an install step, and dprint can be used as you wish!

With the power of cargo aliases, cargo bin --sync-aliases will create aliases for any cargo-* crate, allowing you to execute commands such cargo nextest run that will use cargo bin under the hood. Check out some of the example from this repo.

When pulling down a new repo, or adding a step to CI, cargo bin --install will install or build all binaries that have not been cached which are configured in Cargo.toml.

run-bin can also be used as a library and paired nicely with your build.rs or any other scripts. The following example demos having dprint configured within [package.metadata.bin], and executing dprint --help.

[package.metadata.bin]
dprint = { version = "0.40.2" }

use anyhow::Result;
use cargo_run_bin::{binary, metadata};

fn main() -> Result<()> {
    let binary_package = metadata::get_binary_packages()?
        .iter()
        .find(|e| e.package == "dprint")
        .unwrap()
        .to_owned();
    let bin_path = binary::install(binary_package)?;
    binary::run(bin_path, vec!["--help".to_string()])?;

    return Ok(());
}

Using binary::run is optional. You can recreate it and make changes to your liking using std::process, with shims included!

use std::process;

use anyhow::Result;
use cargo_run_bin::{binary, metadata, shims};

fn main() -> Result<()> {
    let binary_package = metadata::get_binary_packages()?
        .iter()
        .find(|e| e.package == "dprint")
        .unwrap()
        .to_owned();
    let bin_path = binary::install(binary_package)?;

    let mut shell_paths = shims::get_shim_paths()?;
    shell_paths.push(env::var("PATH").unwrap_or("".to_string()));

    process::Command::new(bin_path)
        .args(["--help"])
        .env("PATH", shell_paths.join(":"))
        .spawn();

    return Ok(());
}

MIT.