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Rusta

Development Setup

Development Setup

This guide walks you through setting up your local environment for contributing to Rusta.

Prerequisites

  • Rust 1.79+ (2021 edition) — install via rustup
  • Docker — required for integration tests
  • Node.js 18+ — only needed for docs site development
  • Git — for version control

Clone the Repository

Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/beejay141/rusta.git
cd rusta

Verify the Build

Run a quick check to make sure everything compiles:

Terminal window
cargo check --workspace

This compiles all crates in the workspace without running tests.

Run the Example App

The fastest way to see Rusta in action:

Terminal window
# Start MongoDB
docker compose up mongo -d


# Run the example
cargo run -p rusta-example

The API will be available at http://localhost:3001.

Run Tests

Unit tests

Terminal window
cargo test --workspace --lib

Integration tests

Integration tests use testcontainers and require Docker:

Terminal window
# Build the test image first
docker build -t rusta-example:test -f rusta-example/Dockerfile .


# Run integration tests
cargo test -p rusta-example --tests

Specific test

Terminal window
cargo test -p rusta-example test_register_success -- --nocapture

IDE Setup

VS Code

Recommended extensions:

  • rust-lang.rust-analyzer — Rust language server
  • tamasfe.even-better-toml — TOML support
  • EditorConfig.EditorConfig — EditorConfig support

IntelliJ / CLion

  • Install the Rust plugin
  • Open the workspace root as a project

Project Structure

rusta/
├── rusta/              # Core framework
├── rusta-di/           # Dependency injection
├── rusta-di-macros/    # Proc-macros
├── rusta-apm/          # APM
├── rusta-logger/       # Logger
├── rusta-example/      # Example blog API
├── cargo-rusta/        # CLI scaffolder
├── docs/               # Reference docs (markdown)
├── rusta-docs/         # Astro docs site
└── .github/workflows/  # CI

Common Tasks

Format code

Terminal window
cargo fmt --all

Lint code

Terminal window
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets

Build release binaries

Terminal window
cargo build --release --workspace

Build the docs site

Terminal window
cd rusta-docs
npm install
npm run dev

The site will be available at http://localhost:4321.

Test the CLI scaffolder

Terminal window
# Build the CLI
cargo build --release -p cargo-rusta


# Scaffold a test project
cd /tmp
rm -rf test-project
../rusta/target/release/cargo-rusta new test-project --template default
cd test-project
cargo check

Troubleshooting

“linker not found” on Linux

Install build essentials:

Terminal window
sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev

Docker permission errors

Add your user to the docker group:

Terminal window
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
# Log out and back in for changes to take effect

Proc-macro errors

If you see cryptic errors from rusta-di-macros, try:

Terminal window
cargo clean
cargo check --workspace

Stale build artifacts

Terminal window
cargo clean
rm -rf target
cargo build --workspace

Next Steps