A Cargo subcommand that automatically manages dependencies in your Rust projects.
cargo-autodd simplifies Rust dependency management by automatically adding required crates to your Cargo.toml based on use statements, extern crate declarations, and direct references in your code.
- 🔎 Scans Rust source files for imports and direct references
- 🤖 Automatically detects required dependencies
- ⬆️ Updates Cargo.toml with the latest stable versions (including patch versions)
- 🗑️ Removes unused dependencies
- 📊 Generates dependency usage reports
- 🔒 Checks for security vulnerabilities
- 🏢 Supports Cargo workspaces and monorepo structures
- 🛡️ Handles internal crates with path dependencies correctly
- 🐛 Debug mode for detailed analysis
- 🔍 Detects direct references without use statements (e.g.,
serde_json::Value) - 🔄 Preserves original crate names (handles dashes and underscores correctly)
- 👀 Dry-run mode to preview changes without modifying files
- ⚙️ Configuration file support (
.cargo-autodd.toml) - 🧪 Auto-detects dev-dependencies from
tests/directory
cargo install cargo-autodd- 🦀 Rust 1.56.0 or later
- 📦 Cargo
# Show help information
cargo autodd --help
# Analyze and update dependencies in the current project
cargo autodd
# Preview changes without modifying files (dry-run)
cargo autodd --dry-run
# Run with debug mode for detailed analysis
cargo autodd --debug
# or
cargo autodd -d
# Use custom config file
cargo autodd --config /path/to/.cargo-autodd.toml
# or
cargo autodd -c /path/to/.cargo-autodd.toml# Check and update all dependencies to their latest versions
cargo autodd update# Generate a detailed dependency usage report
cargo autodd report# Check for security vulnerabilities
cargo autodd security# Run in the root of your workspace to analyze all crates
cargo autodd
# Run in a specific crate directory within the workspace
cd crates/my-crate
cargo autoddWhen using cargo-autodd in a monorepo:
- Internal crates with
pathdependencies are automatically detected - The tool respects
publish = falsesettings - Dependencies are correctly managed across the workspace
In debug mode, the following detailed information is displayed:
- 🔍 Path of detected Rust files
- 📝 Content of each line being processed
- 🔎 Detected
usestatements and base crate names - 📦 Details of nested imports
- 🔧 Detection of
extern cratestatements - 📊 Analysis results of each file
- 📋 Final list of crate references
Preview what changes would be made without actually modifying files:
cargo autodd --dry-runThis shows:
- Dependencies that would be added
- Dependencies that would be removed
- Dev-dependencies detected from
tests/directory
Create a .cargo-autodd.toml file in your project root to customize behavior:
# Crates to exclude from analysis (e.g., internal crates, false positives)
exclude = ["internal_crate", "another_internal"]
# Additional essential dependencies (never removed automatically)
essential = ["custom_essential_lib"]
# Crates to always treat as dev-dependencies
dev_only = ["proptest", "criterion"]
# Skip tests/ directory analysis entirely
skip_tests = false| Option | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
exclude |
Array | Crates to skip during analysis |
essential |
Array | Additional crates that should never be removed |
dev_only |
Array | Crates to always add as dev-dependencies |
skip_tests |
Boolean | If true, skip analyzing tests/ directory |
- 📝 Analyzes your Rust source files
- 🔍 Detects import statements, external crate declarations, and direct references
- 🧪 Crates used only in
tests/directory are added to[dev-dependencies] - ⚡ Updates Cargo.toml with required dependencies
- ✅ Verifies changes with
cargo check - 🔒 Checks for security vulnerabilities
- 📊 Generates detailed reports about dependency usage
cargo-autodd fully supports Cargo workspaces and monorepo structures:
- 🔄 Correctly detects and handles internal crates within a workspace
- 🛡️ Respects
publish = falsesettings for internal crates - 🔗 Properly handles path dependencies in both standard and inline table formats:
# Both formats are supported: internal-crate = { path = "../internal-crate" } [dependencies.another-internal-crate] path = "../another-internal-crate"
- 🚫 Avoids searching for internal crates on crates.io
- 🧩 Works with workspace inheritance for dependency management
This ensures that your internal crates that aren't meant to be published to crates.io are handled correctly, avoiding errors like Crate 'internal_crate' not found on crates.io.
Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
nwiizo (@nwiizo)
