Cargo Tools is a Visual Studio Code extension that provides IDE-like features for Rust/Cargo development. It complements rust-analyzer by adding project configuration controls, a workspace target browser, cargo-make task management, and cargo alias shortcuts.
Run and pin cargo aliases defined in .cargo/config.toml — the same shortcuts you use in the terminal are surfaced as first-class tasks in the Tasks panel. This includes the xtask pattern, where a workspace member acts as a build tool invoked via a cargo alias such as cargo xtask compile.
- Visual Studio Code 1.102.0 or higher
- Rust toolchain with Cargo installed via rustup
Launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the following command, and press enter.
ext install NickelWenzel.cargo-tools- Rust stable
- Node.js 20
- wasm-pack 0.14
- wasm-bindgen-cli 0.2.106
Development workflows are driven by the xtask binary via Cargo aliases defined in .cargo/config.toml.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
cargo compile |
Build WASM + bundle TypeScript |
cargo lint |
cargo clippy + cargo fmt --check + ESLint |
cargo xt-test |
Run Rust tests on native and wasm32-unknown-unknown |
cargo xt-pkg |
Produce cargo-tools.vsix |
Contributions welcome via PRs or issues on Github.
This extension draws inspiration from vscode-cmake-tools.
MIT