https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills
A collection of 265 rules across 26 categories that AI coding agents can use to write idiomatic, fast, and safe Rust.
https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills
agent-skills ai-coding best-practices claude-code code-quality codex coding-guidelines copilot llm opencode rust rust-lang rust-language
Last synced: about 1 hour ago
JSON representation
A collection of 265 rules across 26 categories that AI coding agents can use to write idiomatic, fast, and safe Rust.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills
- Owner: leonardomso
- License: mit
- Created: 2026-01-19T13:22:27.000Z (6 months ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2026-06-14T22:51:13.000Z (about 1 month ago)
- Last Synced: 2026-06-15T00:20:09.706Z (about 1 month ago)
- Topics: agent-skills, ai-coding, best-practices, claude-code, code-quality, codex, coding-guidelines, copilot, llm, opencode, rust, rust-lang, rust-language
- Language: Python
- Homepage:
- Size: 433 KB
- Stars: 257
- Watchers: 7
- Forks: 39
- Open Issues: 1
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
- Agents: AGENTS.md
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- awesome-starred - leonardomso/rust-skills - A collection of 265 rules across 26 categories that AI coding agents can use to write idiomatic, fast, and safe Rust. (Python)
README
# Rust Skills
265 Rust rules your AI coding agent can use to write better code. Current for Rust 1.96 (2024 edition).
Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, Codex, Aider, Zed, Amp, Cline, and pretty much any other agent that supports skills.
## Why
Out of the box, coding agents write *average* Rust — they clone to dodge the borrow checker, `.unwrap()` everything, and reach for `Box` when `impl Trait` would do. These rules encode what expert Rust actually looks like: idiomatic, fast, and safe. Each rule is small and focused, so the agent pulls in only what's relevant to the code in front of it.
## Install
```bash
npx add-skill leonardomso/rust-skills
```
That's it. The CLI figures out which agents you have and installs the skill to the right place.
## How to use it
After installing, just ask your agent:
```
/rust-skills review this function
```
```
/rust-skills is my error handling idiomatic?
```
```
/rust-skills check for memory issues
```
```
/rust-skills is this unsafe block sound?
```
The agent loads the relevant rules and applies them to your code.
## See it in action
Ask the agent to review a function like this:
```rust
// before
fn first_word(s: &String) -> String {
s.clone().split_whitespace().next().unwrap().to_string()
}
```
With these rules loaded, it knows to take `&str` instead of `&String`, drop the
needless `clone()` and allocation, and return an `Option` instead of panicking:
```rust
// after — applies own-slice-over-vec, own-borrow-over-clone, anti-unwrap-abuse
fn first_word(s: &str) -> Option<&str> {
s.split_whitespace().next()
}
```
## What's in here
265 rules split into 26 categories:
| Category | Rules | What it covers |
|----------|-------|----------------|
| **Ownership & Borrowing** | 12 | When to borrow vs clone, Arc/Rc, lifetimes |
| **Error Handling** | 12 | thiserror for libs, anyhow for apps, the `?` operator |
| **Memory** | 17 | SmallVec, arenas, avoiding allocations, `mem::take`, drop order |
| **Unsafe Code** | 7 | `SAFETY:` comments, Miri, `MaybeUninit`, 2024-edition unsafe |
| **API Design** | 17 | Builder pattern, newtypes, sealed traits, `FromIterator` |
| **Async** | 18 | Tokio patterns, channels, async fn in traits, cancel safety |
| **Concurrency** | 4 | rayon, scoped threads, atomic ordering, thread-locals |
| **Optimization** | 12 | LTO, inlining, PGO, SIMD |
| **Numeric & Arithmetic** | 5 | Overflow handling, `as` vs `TryFrom`, float compare, `NonZero` |
| **Type Safety** | 13 | Newtypes, parse don't validate, `Deref`, `Display`/`Debug` |
| **Trait & Generics Design** | 6 | dyn vs generic, associated types, blanket impls, object safety, orphan rule |
| **Conversions** | 3 | `TryFrom`, `FromStr`, `AsMut` |
| **Const & Compile-Time** | 4 | `const fn`, const vs static, const generics, `const {}` blocks |
| **Serde** | 8 | rename_all, default, flatten, enum tagging, validate-on-deserialize |
| **Pattern Matching** | 5 | `let-else`, `matches!`, if-let chains, exhaustive matches |
| **Macros** | 8 | `macro_rules!` hygiene, fragment specifiers, proc-macros with syn/quote |
| **Closures** | 5 | Fn/FnMut/FnOnce bounds, returning `impl Fn`, move & disjoint capture |
| **Collections** | 4 | HashMap/BTreeMap/IndexMap, Vec/VecDeque, sets, `BinaryHeap` |
| **Naming** | 16 | Following Rust API Guidelines |
| **Testing** | 15 | Proptest, mockall, criterion, loom, snapshot tests |
| **Docs** | 12 | Doc examples, intra-doc links, README/crate-doc unification |
| **Observability** | 7 | tracing over log, spans, structured fields, redacting secrets |
| **Performance** | 13 | Iterators, entry API, faster hashers, I/O buffering |
| **Project Structure** | 14 | Workspaces, module layout, features, MSRV |
| **Linting** | 13 | Clippy config, CI setup, `unexpected_cfgs` |
| **Anti-patterns** | 15 | Common mistakes and how to fix them |
Each rule has:
- Why it matters
- A bad code example
- A good code example
- Links to related rules and sources
## How it works
The design is built for low token cost and easy auditing:
- **[`SKILL.md`](./SKILL.md)** is a lightweight index — every rule listed as a one-line summary, grouped by category, with a link to its file. The agent reads this first.
- **[`rules/`](./rules)** holds one Markdown file per rule (`-.md`). The agent opens only the handful relevant to your code instead of loading all 218 — progressive disclosure keeps context small.
- **Prefixes** (`own-`, `err-`, `unsafe-`, `async-`, …) map directly to categories, so an agent reviewing async code can pull just `async-`, `conc-`, and `own-` rules.
`CLAUDE.md` and `AGENTS.md` are symlinks to `SKILL.md`, so the same content works across agent conventions.
## Manual install
If `add-skill` doesn't work for your setup, here's how to install manually:
Claude Code
Global (applies to all projects):
```bash
git clone https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills.git ~/.claude/skills/rust-skills
```
Or just for one project:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills.git .claude/skills/rust-skills
```
OpenCode
```bash
git clone https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills.git .opencode/skills/rust-skills
```
Cursor
```bash
git clone https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills.git .cursor/skills/rust-skills
```
Or just grab the skill file:
```bash
curl -o .cursorrules https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardomso/rust-skills/master/SKILL.md
```
Windsurf
```bash
mkdir -p .windsurf/rules
curl -o .windsurf/rules/rust-skills.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardomso/rust-skills/master/SKILL.md
```
OpenAI Codex
```bash
git clone https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills.git .codex/skills/rust-skills
```
Or use the AGENTS.md standard:
```bash
curl -o AGENTS.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardomso/rust-skills/master/SKILL.md
```
GitHub Copilot
```bash
mkdir -p .github
curl -o .github/copilot-instructions.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardomso/rust-skills/master/SKILL.md
```
Aider
Add to `.aider.conf.yml`:
```yaml
read: path/to/rust-skills/SKILL.md
```
Or pass it directly:
```bash
aider --read path/to/rust-skills/SKILL.md
```
Zed
```bash
curl -o AGENTS.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardomso/rust-skills/master/SKILL.md
```
Amp
```bash
git clone https://github.com/leonardomso/rust-skills.git .agents/skills/rust-skills
```
Cline / Roo Code
```bash
mkdir -p .clinerules
curl -o .clinerules/rust-skills.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardomso/rust-skills/master/SKILL.md
```
Other agents (AGENTS.md)
If your agent supports the [AGENTS.md](https://agents.md) standard:
```bash
curl -o AGENTS.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardomso/rust-skills/master/SKILL.md
```
## All rules
See [SKILL.md](./SKILL.md) for the full list with links to each rule file.
## Sources & attribution
These rules are an independent synthesis of official Rust guidance, well-known books, and patterns drawn from widely-used open-source crates. They are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Rust project or any crate author. The text and code examples are original summaries — no substantial content is copied from the sources below.
**Official Rust documentation**
- [The Rust Reference](https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/)
- [Rust API Guidelines](https://rust-lang.github.io/api-guidelines/)
- [The Rustonomicon](https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/) (unsafe code)
- [Rust 2024 Edition Guide](https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-2024/)
- [The Cargo Book](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/)
- [Standard library docs](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/) and [release notes](https://doc.rust-lang.org/releases.html)
**Books & guides**
- [The Rust Performance Book](https://nnethercote.github.io/perf-book/) — Nicholas Nethercote
- [Rust Design Patterns](https://rust-unofficial.github.io/patterns/) — rust-unofficial
- [Rust Atomics and Locks](https://marabos.nl/atomics/) — Mara Bos
- [Effective Rust](https://effective-rust.com/) — David Drysdale
**Tooling**
- [Clippy lint documentation](https://rust-lang.github.io/rust-clippy/)
- [Miri](https://github.com/rust-lang/miri)
**Real-world codebases studied for idioms**
- ripgrep, tokio, serde, clap, polars, axum, cargo, hyper, bevy, rayon, and dtolnay's crates (thiserror, anyhow, syn)
This project is MIT-licensed. Referenced upstream materials remain under their own licenses — the official Rust documentation and API Guidelines are dual [MIT](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/master/LICENSE-MIT) / [Apache-2.0](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/master/LICENSE-APACHE).
## Contributing
PRs welcome. To add or change a rule:
1. Create `rules/-.md` using a `kebab-case` id with an existing category prefix (`own-`, `err-`, `mem-`, …).
2. Follow the format of existing rules: a `>` one-line summary, then `## Why It Matters`, `## Bad`, `## Good`, and `## See Also` (with links that resolve).
3. Make sure code examples compile on current stable Rust.
4. Add the rule to the index in `SKILL.md` (Quick Reference list + the category count) so it stays in sync.
````markdown
# prefix-rule-name
> One-line imperative summary.
## Why It Matters
Two to four sentences.
## Bad
```rust
// the anti-pattern
```
## Good
```rust
// the recommended pattern
```
## See Also
- [other-rule](other-rule.md) - why it's related
````
## License
MIT