CARGO-RUN(1) General Commands Manual CARGO-RUN(1)

cargo-run — Run the current package

cargo run [options] [-- args]

Run a binary or example of the local package.

All the arguments following the two dashes (--) are passed to the binary to run. If you’re passing arguments to both Cargo and the binary, the ones after -- go to the binary, the ones before go to Cargo.

Unlike cargo-test(1) and cargo-bench(1), cargo run sets the working directory of the binary executed to the current working directory, same as if it was executed in the shell directly.

By default, the package in the current working directory is selected. The -p flag can be used to choose a different package in a workspace.

-p spec, --package spec

The package to run. See cargo-pkgid(1) for the SPEC format.

When no target selection options are given, cargo run will run the binary target. If there are multiple binary targets, you must pass a target flag to choose one. Or, the default-run field may be specified in the [package] section of Cargo.toml to choose the name of the binary to run by default.

--bin name

Run the specified binary.

--example name

Run the specified example.

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.

--target triple

Run 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.

-r, --release

Run optimized artifacts with the release profile. See also the --profile option for choosing a specific profile by name.

--profile name

Run with the given profile. See the reference https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/profiles.html for more details on profiles.

--ignore-rust-version

Run 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.

--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.

-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.

--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.

--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.

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

+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.

-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 run -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 run -j1 --keep-going would definitely run both builds, even if the one run first fails.

See the reference https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/environment-variables.html for details on environment variables that Cargo reads.

0: Cargo succeeded.
101: Cargo failed to complete.

1.Build the local package and run its main target (assuming only one binary):
cargo run
2.Run an example with extra arguments:
cargo run --example exname -- --exoption exarg1 exarg2

cargo(1), cargo-build(1)