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Expert-level Rust debugging beyond `println!` and `dbg!`. Covers rust-lldb/rust-gdb
(pretty-printers, breakpoints on monomorphized generics, why async backtraces lie),
`tracing`/`tracing-subscriber` (spans, EnvFilter/RUST_LOG, the span-guard-across-.await
trap), tokio-console for async stalls/deadlocks, Miri for UB and data races,
cargo-flamegraph/samply/Instruments for hot paths, panics & backtraces (RUST_BACKTRACE,
panic hooks, catch_unwind, abort vs unwind), debugging stuck/cancelled futures and the
two-executor footgun, FFI/native-addon/dyld failures (@rpath/DYLD_*/install_name_tool,
a .node/cdylib that segfaults its host), build/link debugging (cargo build -v, cargo tree
-d, RUST_MIN_STACK vs recursion_limit), and heisenbugs (release-vs-debug, optimization UB).
Activate on: "debug rust", "rust panic", "segfault", "stack overflow", "RUST_BACKTRACE",
"rust-lldb", "rust-gdb", "tokio-console", "tracing subscriber", "RUST_LOG", "miri",
"data race", "flamegraph", "samply", "@rpath", "Library not loaded", "dlopen", "image not found",
"install_name_tool", "DYLD", "dylib", ".node crashes", "async deadlock", "stuck future",
"undefined behavior", "heisenbug", "linker error", "duplicate dependency".
NOT for: writing new Rust features from scratch (use a code-gen skill), generic borrow-checker
teaching, GPUI/pd-console rendering bugs (use gpui-rust-console), macOS app notarization/packaging
(use rust-app-distribution), or non-Rust native debugging.
allowed-tools
Read,Write,Edit,Bash,Glob,Grep,WebSearch,WebFetch
metadata
{"category":"Debugging & Diagnostics","tags":["rust","debugging","lldb","tracing","tokio-console","miri","flamegraph","dyld","ffi","async","panic","heisenbug"],"pairs-with":[{"skill":"daemon-development","reason":"Long-running Rust daemons are where async stalls, FFI crashes, and panic-abort policy bite hardest"},{"skill":"gpui-rust-console","reason":"GPUI/pd-console rendering, layout, and the two-executor (reqwest/smol) pipeline live there; this skill covers the generic debugging underneath"},{"skill":"git-best-practices","reason":"Bisecting a heisenbug across commits needs disciplined git workflow"},{"skill":"rust-with-claude-code","reason":"Shares the toolchain/testing workflow this skill's diagnosis techniques plug into when pairing with an agent"},{"skill":"rust-app-distribution","reason":"A dyld/codesign failure diagnosed here often traces back to a notarization or install_name_tool step in the distribution pipeline"}],"provenance":{"kind":"first-party","owners":["port-daddy"]},"authorship":{"maintainers":["port-daddy"]},"io-contract":{"kind":"deliverable","consumes":["[Truncated]","[Truncated]"],"produces":["[Truncated]","[Truncated]"]}}
category
Debugging & Diagnostics
Rust Debugging Mastery
The skill for the Rust bugs that println! cannot reach: a future that never wakes, a
.node addon that takes the whole daemon down with it, UB that only appears under --release,
a generic function whose breakpoint never fires because it is actually six functions.
Thesis: match the tool to the bug's shape, not your habit. Every Rust debugging tool
answers one question. A traditional debugger (rust-lldb) answers "what is the state at this
line?" — and is nearly useless for async, because a suspended task is heap state, not a stack
frame. tracing answers "what happened, in what causal order?". tokio-console answers
"which task is stuck or starving the executor?". Miri answers "is this UB?". A flamegraph
answers "where is the time going?". dyld/otool answer "why won't this library load?".
Reaching for the wrong one is the single biggest time sink — see the Decision Points below
before you b main.rs:1.
NOT for
Writing new Rust features or teaching the borrow checker — this is a diagnosis skill.
GPUI / pd-console rendering, layout, focus, or the reqwest↔smol refresh pipeline → gpui-rust-console.
Non-Rust native debugging where Rust-specific pretty-printers and Miri do not apply.
Decision Points — pick the tool by the bug's shape
flowchart TD
A[Rust bug] --> B{What is the symptom?}
B -->|Panic / crash with a message| C{Crash kind}
C -->|"panicked at ..."| C1[RUST_BACKTRACE=full + panic hook → 04-panics-and-heisenbugs.md]
C -->|"has overflowed its stack"| C2[RUST_MIN_STACK, NOT recursion_limit → 04]
C -->|"SIGSEGV / SIGABRT, no Rust message"| C3[FFI/native lib or UB → 02-native-ffi-and-dyld.md / Miri]
B -->|Library not loaded / image not found / dlopen| D[dyld: otool -L, DYLD_PRINT_*, install_name_tool → 02]
B -->|Hangs / deadlocks / stalls, no crash| E{Async?}
E -->|Yes| E1[tokio-console: never-yielded / lost-waker → 01-tracing-and-async.md]
E -->|No| E2[rust-lldb: bt all on each thread for the lock cycle → 05-lldb-and-build-link.md]
B -->|Wrong result, want causal trace| F[tracing spans + EnvFilter → 01]
B -->|Too slow| G[flamegraph / samply / Instruments → 03-profiling-and-memory.md]
B -->|Works in debug breaks in release / flaky| H[Heisenbug: Miri + sanitizers, overflow-checks → 04]
B -->|Suspected UB / unsafe / data race| I[Miri + ThreadSanitizer → 03 / 04]
B -->|undefined symbol / multiple definition / will not link| J[cargo build -v, cargo tree -d → 05]
B -->|Need to step through state at a line| K[rust-lldb, regex breakpoints for generics → 05]
The first branch is the one people get wrong: a hang is not a debugger problem. Attaching
lldb to a deadlocked async program shows you executor poll frames, not which task is waiting on
what. Go to tokio-console first.
Core Capabilities
Capability
Tool / mechanism
The one gotcha
Depth
Source-level stepping, state inspection
rust-lldb / rust-gdb (Rust pretty-printers)
Breakpoint on a generic fn misses monomorphizations — use a regex breakpoint
05-lldb-and-build-link.md
Causal, structured logs
tracing + tracing-subscriberEnvFilter
Never hold span.enter()'s guard across .await — use #[instrument] or .instrument()
01-tracing-and-async.md
Async stalls, deadlocks, leaked tasks
tokio-console + console-subscriber
Needs RUSTFLAGS="--cfg tokio_unstable" + tokiotracing feature, else no data
01-tracing-and-async.md
UB, use-after-free, data races, aliasing
Miri (cargo +nightly miri test)
It is an interpreter — only checks paths you actually run; no real FFI
03-profiling-and-memory.md
Data races / OOB / leaks at native speed
ThreadSanitizer / AddressSanitizer (-Zsanitizer)
Nightly + always pass --target so flags don't leak into build scripts
04-panics-and-heisenbugs.md
Hot-path / CPU profiling
cargo flamegraph, samply, Instruments
Width = time; needs [profile.release] debug = true for symbols
Novice: let _g = span.enter(); some_future.await; — looks like normal RAII scoping.
Expert: When the task yields at .await, the scope is exited but the guard is not dropped,
so another task runs while still "inside" your span — the trace is corrupted. Use
#[tracing::instrument] on the async fn, or future.instrument(span).await (the Instrument
trait re-enters on each poll and exits on each yield). The docs say it verbatim: "Holding the
drop guard returned by Span::enter across .await points will result in incorrect traces."Detection: any .enter()/.entered() whose guard lives in a scope containing an .await.
Attaching a debugger to a hung async program
Novice: program deadlocks → rust-lldb -p <pid> → bt → sees tokio::runtime::...::poll and
gives up.
Expert: A suspended .await is heap state, not a stack frame; the executor only ever calls
poll on the outer future, so the physical stack never shows "task A awaits lock held by task B."
Reach for tokio-console (lost-waker = a task dropped without being woken = will never
complete; never-yielded = a task blocking the worker thread) or annotate with
#[async_backtrace::framed] to dump the logical task tree including suspended tasks.
Detection: a hang with no CPU usage (deadlock) or one core pinned at 100% (a .await-free hot
loop / blocking syscall starving the executor).
Breakpoint on a generic function that never fires
Novice: b my_crate::process on fn process<T>(..) — fires for process::<u32> but not
process::<String>, or not at all.
Expert: Monomorphization emits a separate symbol per instantiating type. Catch them all with
a regex breakpoint: LLDB breakpoint set -r 'my_crate::process', GDB rbreak my_crate::process.
Detection: a breakpoint that "works sometimes" depending on which type path the test exercises.
RUST_MIN_STACK for a stack-overflow that is actually a compile error
Novice: deep macro/type recursion fails to compile → "increase the stack" → RUST_MIN_STACK=....
Expert: RUST_MIN_STACK resizes a runtime thread stack and does nothing for a compile-time
recursion limit — that needs #![recursion_limit = "256"]. Conversely a runtime "thread '...'
has overflowed its stack / fatal runtime error: stack overflow" is not a panic, is not
catchable by catch_unwind, and is fixed by RUST_MIN_STACK or a bigger thread::Builder::stack_size
(or converting recursion to iteration). These two knobs are constantly confused.
Detection: error at cargo build (compile) vs at run time decides which knob.
Letting a native library failure crash the whole daemon
Novice: let lib = Library::new("libonnxruntime.dylib").unwrap(); at startup — a missing/unsigned
dylib takes the entire process down with dyld: Library not loaded: @rpath/... Reason: image not found.
Expert: A hard dyld abort cannot be caught after the fact. Either (a) bundle the dylib next to
the addon and rewrite its install name to @loader_path/libonnxruntime.dylib (immune to SIP-stripped
DYLD_*), then re-sign (install_name_tool invalidates the signature; arm64 SIGKILLs unsigned code),
or (b) detect-and-disable: probe with dlopen(..., RTLD_NOLOAD) / libloading::Library::new(..)
and on Err degrade the feature, never the process.
Detection: any unwrap()/expect() on a Library::new / dlopen at a process-critical path.
Trusting --release to behave like cargo run
Novice: tests pass in debug, ships release, gets silent wrong answers or a crash under load.
Expert: overflow-checks defaults on in dev (panics) and off in release (wraps); UB
(aliasing, uninitialized reads, data races) can be benign unoptimized and fatal once LLVM applies
its assumptions. Adding a println! "fixes" it because I/O perturbs timing/layout — the classic
heisenbug tell. Reproduce deterministically with Miri + ThreadSanitizer and
[profile.release] overflow-checks = true, not by adding logs.
Detection: behavior that changes between profiles, or vanishes when observed.
Quality Gates
□ Tool matched to bug shape (hang→tokio-console, UB→Miri, slow→flamegraph) — not "lldb for everything"
□ No tracing span guard (.enter()/.entered()) held across an .await in async code
□ tokio-console build has RUSTFLAGS="--cfg tokio_unstable" + tokio "tracing" feature
□ Release profiling/debug has [profile.release] debug = true (symbols), else flat unnamed frames
□ Generic-fn breakpoints use a regex (lldb -r / gdb rbreak), not a bare symbol
□ Stack-overflow fix uses the right knob: RUST_MIN_STACK (runtime) vs recursion_limit (compile-time)
□ Every dlopen/Library::new on a critical path is probed/guarded — missing native lib degrades, never aborts
□ After install_name_tool on macOS: re-signed (codesign --force --sign -); arm64 will SIGKILL unsigned code
□ Heisenbug reproduced under Miri / sanitizer / overflow-checks — NOT "fixed" by adding a print
□ FFI panic boundary handled: catch_unwind shim on extern "C", OR panic="abort" chosen deliberately
□ Backtrace claims verified with RUST_BACKTRACE=full on a debug or debug=true build
Deterministic Debug-Plan Audit
Before committing to a debugging session (or reviewing another agent's), run
scripts/debug_plan_audit.mjs against a debug-session-plan matching
schemas/debug-plan.schema.json. It encodes this skill's thesis — match the tool to the
bug's shape — and its Quality Gates as a deterministic check, catching the exact
mismatches called out above (lldb for an async hang, RUST_MIN_STACK for a compile-time
recursion limit, tokio-console with no unstable flags, an unguarded dlopen, a heisenbug
"fixed" by a print instead of reproduced under Miri).
examples/sample-input.json is a hang+async plan correctly routed to tokio-console
(pass: true). examples/sample-input-lldb-for-async-hang.json is the same bug routed to
rust-lldb instead — the flagship anti-pattern — and audits pass: false with a criticaldebugger-attached-to-async-hang finding.
Worked Example (index)
The flagship worked example is examples/dyld-segfault-onnxruntime.md — a real-shaped session
where an onnxruntime native addon segfaults a daemon on startup because libonnxruntime.dylib is
not on the dyld search path. It walks the full diagnosis (DYLD_PRINT_LIBRARIES, otool -L,
reading @rpath, nm/c++filt) and all four fixes, ending at detect-and-disable so the daemon
never dies for a missing optional library. A second transcript,
examples/async-stall-tokio-console.md, finds a .await-free loop starving the Tokio executor
via the never-yielded warning. See examples/INDEX.md.
Reference Files
Load only the one that matches the bug in front of you. See references/INDEX.md.
examples/async-stall-tokio-console.md — Worked example: a daemon that "hangs" with one core pinned — Symptom. A Tokio-based daemon stops responding to its HTTP health check after a few minutes under load.
examples/dyld-segfault-onnxruntime.md — Worked example: a native addon segfaults the daemon on startup — Symptom. A Rust/Node daemon that uses an onnxruntime embedding model dies immediately on launch on a colleague's Apple Silicon Mac — no
references/01-tracing-and-async.md — Tracing, structured logging, and async debugging — > Crate versions current as of June 2026: tracing 0.1.44, tracing-subscriber 0.3.22, > console-subscriber 0.5.0.
references/02-native-ffi-and-dyld.md — Native FFI & macOS dyld debugging — > The highest-value section: a missing or mis-pathed .dylib does not throw — on a hard load > failure **dyld aborts the entire host proces
references/03-profiling-and-memory.md — Profiling hot paths & finding UB with Miri — Two questions: "where is the time going?" → flamegraph/samply/Instruments.
references/04-panics-and-heisenbugs.md — Panics, backtraces, and heisenbugs — --- Default panic output (verbatim, from The Book): full adds the frames =1 trims for readability.
references/05-lldb-and-build-link.md — rust-lldb / rust-gdb and build/link debugging — The stepping-debugger question ("what is the state at this line?") plus the compile/link layer ("why won't this build or link?").
references/INDEX.md — References — Load only the file that matches the bug in front of you.
