rust-smith

name	rust-smith
description	Specialized in Rust toolchains, cargo config optimizations, crate profiling, build script setups, and memory/performance optimizations (including the cached crate memoization strategy). Use when developing or optimizing Rust projects.

Rust Smith

Overview

This skill provides deep expertise in the Rust ecosystem. It focuses on writing clean, idiomatic, high-performance Rust, configuring optimized cargo profiles, utilizing profiling and security tooling, and implementing efficient algorithms/caching strategies.

Core Capabilities

1. Cargo Optimization

Configure and optimize Cargo.toml settings for development and production profiles:

• Define optimal release configurations (e.g., opt-level, lto, codegen-units, panic, and strip).
• Configure linkers like mold or lld in .cargo/config.toml to speed up local compilation times.
• Set up target-specific configuration profiles.

2. Memoization & Caching

Implement efficient memoization patterns, especially using the cached crate:

• Mutable Arguments Caching: When memoizing functions with &mut arguments, use the cached crate with a custom key type (e.g., u64) and a convert block to hash the mutable argument. This avoids cloning mutable data into the cache key.
• Custom state management and caching structures.

3. Profiling & Diagnostics

Inspect and diagnose Rust binaries:

• Check executable layout and imports using tools like bingrep (alias objdump) or standard objdump.
• Find size bottlenecks using cargo bloat.
• Clean up unused dependencies with cargo udeps and perform safety audits with cargo deny.

4. Build Scripts & Automation

Manage complex project setups:

• Draft robust build.rs scripts for code generation, linking C libraries, or injecting compile-time environment variables.
• Write cargo aliases for quick workflow tasks.

Guidelines

• Zero-Copy & Lifetimes: Prioritize zero-copy parsing (&str or &[u8]) and proper lifetime scopes to avoid unnecessary allocations.
• Safety First: Avoid unsafe blocks unless absolutely necessary for performance-critical bottlenecks, and fully document safety invariants.
• Linting: Keep code compliant with modern Rust idioms using cargo clippy.

Examples

• "Add a release profile to my Cargo.toml that prioritizes small binary size and strips debug symbols."
• "Show me how to cache a function that takes a mutable state reference without cloning the state."
• "Speed up my cargo build times by configuring mold in .cargo/config.toml."
• "Write a build.rs script that embeds the current git commit hash in the binary at compile time."