Crates

What a crate is

A crate is a compilation unit—your binary or library—and also a package published to crates.io.

Add a dependency

Edit Cargo.toml or use cargo add.

cargo add rand

# Or in Cargo.toml:
# [dependencies]
# rand = "0.8"

Use the crate

Import items from the dependency in your code.

use rand::Rng;

fn main() {
    let n = rand::thread_rng().gen_range(1..=6);
    println!("rolled {n}");
}

Dependency tips

• Run cargo doc --open to read docs locally
• Pin versions thoughtfully as projects grow
• Prefer well-maintained crates with clear licenses
• Binary crates have main.rs; library crates use lib.rs