cargo-temp

A CLI tool that allows you to create a new rust project in a temporary directory with already installed dependencies.

Install

Requires Rust 1.51.

cargo install cargo-temp

Usage

Create a new temporary project:

• With no additional dependencies: cargo-temp

• With multiple dependencies: cargo-temp rand tokio

• When specifying a version: cargo-temp anyhow=1.0`

Using the cargo's comparison requirements:

• Exact version: cargo-temp anyhow==1.0.13

• Maximal version: cargo-temp anyhow=<1.0.2

Repositories

You can add repositories to your Cargo.toml.

Examples:

• HTTP: cargo-temp anyhow=https://github.com/dtolnay/anyhow.git

• SSH cargo-temp anyhow=ssh://git@github.com/dtolnay/anyhow.git

To choose a branch or a revision:

• Branch: cargo-temp anyhow=https://github.com/dtolnay/anyhow.git#branch=master

• Revision: cargo-temp anyhow=https://github.com/dtolnay/anyhow.git#rev=7e0f77a38

Without a branch or a revision, cargo will use the default branch of the repository.

Features

The TO_DELETE file

If you change your mind and decide to keep the project you can just delete the TO_DELETE file and the directory will not be deleted when the shell or the editor exits.

Git Working Tree

You can create a git worktree from the current repository using:

cargo-temp --worktree

This will create a new working tree at the current HEAD. You can specify a branch like this:

cargo-temp --worktree <branch>

When exiting the shell (or your editor) the working tree will be cleaned up. Equivalent to git worktree prune.

Temporary Git Clone

If you want to create a temporary project from a Git repository, you can use the --git option with the repository's URL:

cargo-temp --git <url>

Cargo-temp truncates the history to the last commit by default. You can change this behavior in the config file:

• You can choose how many commits will stay in the history. toml git_repo_depth = 3 This will leave the 3 last commits of the history.
• If you do not want to truncate the history, you can set the git_repo_depth to false. toml git_repo_depth = false

git_repo_depth = true is the same as the default behavior.

Settings

The config file is located at {CONFIG_DIR}/cargo-temp/config.toml. When you run cargo-temp for the first time it will be created automatically. We use the XDG system for both Linux and OSX and the Known Folder system on Windows.

Temporary project directory

The path where the temporary projects are created. Set on the cache directory by default.

toml temporary_project_dir = "/home/name/.cache/cargo-temp/"

Cargo target directory

Cargo's target directory override. This setting is unset by default and will be ignored if the CARGO_TARGET_DIR environment variable is already set.

toml temporary_project_dir = "/home/name/repos/tmp"

Editor

You can use editor to start an IDE instead of a shell and editor_args to provide its arguments. These settings are unset by default.

• Example to run VS Code on Unix toml editor = "/usr/bin/code" editor_args = [ "--wait", "--new-window" ]

• Example to run VS Code on Windows toml editor = "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft VS Code\\Code.exe" editor_args = [ "--wait", "--new-window" ]

Use a VCS

By default, cargo-temp will use the default cargo VCS for your projects (which is normally git), you can change that in the config file with the vcs option.

toml vcs = "pijul"

The possible values are

• pijul
• fossil
• hg
• git
• none

The --vcs value will be passed as is to cargo.