Rust cheat sheet

A scannable Rust reference: 7 short snippets across 4 topics, each linking back to the lesson it came from.

At a glance

Topic	What it covers
Error handling with Result and Cargo	Do not convert every error into a string too early. Erasing the type discards the ability to match on the cause, so	lesson
Setting up Rust: rustup, Cargo and edition 2024	Rust is installed through rustup, a version manager rather than a package. It installs the toolchain — rustc, cargo	lesson
Modules, crates and project structure	mod, pub and use, library versus binary targets, file and folder layout, workspaces, feature flags, dependency semver	lesson
Testing, documentation and CI	Unit tests in-module, integration tests, test organisation and fixtures, doc-tests, benchmarks, and a CI pipeline that	lesson

Quick snippets

Error handling with Result and Cargo

Cargo: layout, builds and dependencies

cargo new hello --bin      # binary crate; --lib for a library
cd hello

cargo build                # debug build into target/debug
cargo run                  # build and execute
cargo test                 # unit tests in #[cfg(test)] modules
cargo build --release      # optimised, target/release
cargo add serde --features derive
cargo clippy               # lint pass with many useful correctness lints
cargo fmt                  # apply rustfmt

Cargo: layout, builds and dependencies

[package]
name = "hello"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"

[dependencies]
serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
anyhow = "1"

[profile.release]
lto = true

Full lesson: Error handling with Result and Cargo →

Setting up Rust: rustup, Cargo and edition 2024

rustup and toolchains

rustup show                       # installed toolchains and the active one
rustup update                     # upgrade every channel
rustup toolchain install nightly  # opt in to a channel per project
rustup component add clippy rustfmt
rustup target add x86_64-unknown-linux-musl

rustup override set 1.85.0        # pin this directory to a version
rustc --version && cargo --version

rustup and toolchains

[toolchain]
channel = "1.85.0"
components = ["rustfmt", "clippy"]
targets = ["x86_64-unknown-linux-musl"]

Cargo.toml: the manifest

cargo new notes --bin      # binary crate; --lib for a library
cargo new --lib notes-core
cargo add clap --features derive
cargo add --dev tempfile
cargo add [email protected]

Full lesson: Setting up Rust: rustup, Cargo and edition 2024 →

Modules, crates and project structure

Layout: lib, bin and folders

[features]
default = ["memory"]
memory = []
sqlite = ["dep:rusqlite"]
full = ["sqlite", "metrics"]

[dependencies]
rusqlite = { version = "0.32", optional = true }

Full lesson: Modules, crates and project structure →

Testing, documentation and CI

Doc-tests and benchmarks

cargo test                        # unit + integration + doc-tests
cargo test --doc                  # doc-tests only
cargo test -- --nocapture         # show stdout from tests
cargo test -- --ignored           # run the slow ones
cargo bench                       # criterion, with statistical comparison
cargo test --release              # catch debug/release behaviour differences

Full lesson: Testing, documentation and CI →

FAQ

Is this Rust cheat sheet free to use?

Yes. No sign-up and no tracking: the page is static, every example is on the page itself, and you can print it or save it as a one-page reference.

Where do the examples come from?

Every snippet is taken from the 4 lessons of the Rust course on this site, and each section links back to the lesson it was pulled from.

How do I go deeper than a cheat sheet?

Open the full Rust course — it carries the worked explanations, the edge cases and the exercises behind every line here.

Node.js PHP Java HTTP Go Spring Boot

Last refreshed 2026-09-27.