Cargo Shear ✂️ 🐑

Detect and fix issues in Rust projects:

• Unused dependencies in Cargo.toml
• Misplaced dependencies (dev/build dependencies in wrong sections)
• Unlinked source files (Rust files not reachable from any module tree)

[!NOTE] This tool is considered feature-complete. We continue to welcome contributions that focus on bug fixes, dependency upgrades, and UI/UX improvements.

Installation

# Install from pre-built binaries.
cargo binstall cargo-shear

# Build from source.
cargo install cargo-shear

# Install from brew.
brew install cargo-shear

Usage

Check for issues without making changes:

cargo shear

Automatically fix unused dependencies:

cargo shear --fix

Treat warnings as errors (exit with failure code):

cargo shear --deny-warnings

This is useful for CI/CD pipelines to enforce strict checking of warnings such as empty files, unlinked files, and unused optional dependencies.

Generate machine-readable JSON output:

cargo shear --format=json

This is particularly useful for CI/CD pipelines and custom tooling that need to programmatically process the results.

Detect mismatches between [lib] target settings and source content:

cargo shear --check-test-targets

When set, cargo-shear warns when test = false is paired with source that contains tests (or doctest = false with source that contains doc tests), and — within a workspace — when test / doctest are left at their default of true for lib targets that contain none. Disabled by default; pair with --fix to automatically reconcile the flags.

Limitations

[!IMPORTANT] cargo shear cannot detect "hidden" imports from macro expansions without the --expand flag (nightly only). This is because cargo shear uses rust-analyzer's parser to parse files and does not expand macros by default.

To expand macros:

cargo shear --expand --fix

The --expand flag uses cargo expand, which requires nightly and is significantly slower.

[!IMPORTANT] Misplaced dependency detection only works for integration tests, benchmarks, and examples. Unit tests dependencies within #[cfg(test)] cannot be detected as misplaced.

Configuration

Ignore false positives

False positives can be ignored by adding them to the package's Cargo.toml:

[package.metadata.cargo-shear]
ignored = ["crate-name"]

Ignore unlinked files

Unlinked files can be ignored using glob patterns:

[package.metadata.cargo-shear]
ignored-paths = ["src/proto/*.rs", "examples/old/*"]

Both options work in workspace Cargo.toml as well:

[workspace.metadata.cargo-shear]
ignored = ["crate-name"]
ignored-paths = ["*/proto/*.rs"]

Ignore scope

• Package ignore ([package.metadata.cargo-shear]) applies only to that package.
• Workspace ignore ([workspace.metadata.cargo-shear]) applies to every member and to the workspace dependency itself. ignored-paths globs are matched relative to the workspace root.

An ignore that suppresses nothing is reported as redundant so it can be removed. A workspace ignore is considered redundant only when no member needs it — a dependency that is used in one crate but unused in another stays covered by the workspace ignore.

cargo-hakari workspace-hack crates

cargo-hakari generates a workspace-hack crate that declares many dependencies it never imports (to unify Cargo features) and is depended on by every workspace member without being imported. cargo shear detects such a crate automatically — via the ### BEGIN HAKARI SECTION marker in its Cargo.toml — and skips both the crate itself and the dependency edges pointing at it, so no ignored configuration is needed.

Otherwise please report the issue as a bug.

CI

[!NOTE] cargo shear uses static analysis and operates on source code without compiling. This means it only needs to run once on a single platform (e.g., Linux) to detect issues across all target platforms, including those with platform-specific dependencies and conditional compilation.

The only exception is when using the --expand flag, which invokes cargo build and may produce platform-specific results.

- name: Install cargo-binstall
  uses: cargo-bins/cargo-binstall@main

- name: Install cargo-shear
  run: cargo binstall --no-confirm cargo-shear

- run: cargo shear

JSON Output for CI Integration

For CI systems that require structured output, use the --format=json flag:

- name: Check for unused dependencies
  run: cargo shear --format=json > shear-results.json

The JSON output includes: - summary: Counts of errors, warnings, and fixes - findings: Detailed information about each issue including: - code: The diagnostic code (e.g., shear/unused_dependency) - severity: Error or warning level - message: Human-readable description - file: Path to the file with the issue - location: Byte offset and length within the file - help: Suggested fix - fixable: Boolean indicating if issue can be auto-fixed with --fix

Exit Code (for CI)

Exit Code	Without --fix	With --fix
0	No issues found	No issues found, no changes made
1	Issues found	Issues found and fixed
2	Error during processing	Error during processing

Strict Mode with --deny-warnings

By default, warnings (such as empty files, unlinked files, and unused optional dependencies) exit with code 0. Use the --deny-warnings flag to treat warnings as errors for stricter CI enforcement:

Exit Code	Without --deny-warnings	With --deny-warnings
0	No errors (warnings allowed)	No errors or warnings
1	Errors found	Errors or warnings found
2	Error during processing	Error during processing

GitHub Actions Example:

- name: cargo-shear
  shell: bash
  run: |
    if ! cargo shear --fix; then
      cargo check
    fi

Strict CI Example with --deny-warnings:

- name: cargo-shear (strict)
  run: cargo shear --deny-warnings

Technique

1. Use the cargo_metadata crate to list all dependencies specified in [workspace.dependencies] and [dependencies]
2. Iterate through all package targets (lib, bin, example, test and bench) to locate all Rust files
3. Use rust-analyzer's parser (ra_ap_syntax) to parse these Rust files and extract imports
4. Alternatively, use the --expand option with cargo expand to first expand macros and then parse the expanded code (though this is significantly slower)
5. Find the difference between the imports and the package dependencies

Prior Art

• est31/cargo-udeps
  • it collects dependency usage by compiling your project and find them from the target/ directory
  • does not seem to work anymore with the latest versions of cargo
  • does not work with cargo workspaces
• bnjbvr/cargo-machete
  • it collects dependency usage by running regex patterns on source code
  • does not detect all usages of a dependency
  • does not remove unused dependencies from the workspace root
• cargo and clippy
  • There was intention to add similar features to cargo or clippy, but the progress is currently stagnant
  • See https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/57274 and https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-clippy/issues/4341

Trophy Cases

• -7 lines from oxc
• -59 lines from rspack
• -39 lines from rolldown
• -12 lines ast-grep commit1 commit2
• -66 lines biome
• -164 lines astral-sh/uv
• -86 lines reqsign
• -184 lines from turbopack
• -625 lines from openai/codex
• -69 lines from uutils/coreutils
• -1,588 lines from vinhnx/vtcode

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