rust-powers

The complete and highly opinionated skillset for web development in the Rust language.

This repository is a shared playbook for humans and coding agents building Rust web services. It makes one pick per concern - axum, sea-orm, PostgreSQL, nextest, OpenTelemetry, rig, NATS, Redis - and captures the conventions that go with them, so a team stops re-deciding the same things and AI-assisted changes come out predictable.

The main artifact is the skills/ directory. Each skill is a focused Markdown guide an agent loads when working in that domain. STACK.md is the single source of truth for every version and library choice. python-powers is the sibling project this repository mirrors for Python services.

What's Inside

Skill	Use it for
rust-code-style	Ownership and cloning discipline, thiserror vs anyhow, no-panic rules, newtypes, async discipline, module layout, and edition 2024 idioms.
axum-service	Routes, extractors, validated bodies, AppError and status mapping, utoipa and Swagger UI, settings, middleware order, health checks, pagination, SSE, graceful shutdown, JWT auth, and observability: tracing logs, OTLP export, traceparent propagation, Prometheus metrics.
sea-orm-postgres	Dense entities, typed column filters, pagination, eager loading and N+1 diagnosis, transactions, sea-orm-migration, pool sizing, and per-test database isolation.
rust-testing	axum-test API tests, the test_app() helper, rstest fixtures, fake and bon factories, httpmock, insta snapshots, an injected Clock, nextest filters, coverage gates.
rust-tooling	rust-toolchain.toml, the [workspace.lints] table, clippy.toml, rustfmt.toml, nextest and llvm-cov config, cargo-deny, cargo-machete, bacon, prek, Makefile, Docker, and CI.
rust-scaffolding	Generating a brand-new axum service from a buildable template: migrations, tests, lints, Docker, and CI green from the first commit. Greenfield only.
building-rig-agents	rig agents in an axum service - agent builder, tools, structured extraction, streaming, RAG, conversation history, rmcp clients, and offline testing.
rust-nats	async-nats in an axum service - core publish/subscribe/request, JetStream streams and durable pull consumers, the consumer loop, shutdown, readiness, and NATS tests.
rust-redis	redis-rs in an axum service - the ConnectionManager, cache-aside with TTLs, distributed locks, rate limiting, idempotency storage, readiness, and Redis tests.

Some skills include additional reference material linked from their main guide.

How To Use

1. Pick the skill that matches the task.
2. Load its SKILL.md before editing code.
3. Load related skills only when their domain is actually involved.
4. Follow the ownership boundaries in each skill instead of mixing unrelated rules.

Typical combinations:

Task	Skills
Start a brand-new service from scratch	rust-scaffolding (then the domain skills it hands off to)
Add or refactor Rust application code	rust-code-style
Build an endpoint backed by PostgreSQL	rust-code-style, axum-service, sea-orm-postgres, rust-testing
Add an AI assistant endpoint to a service	rust-code-style, axum-service, building-rig-agents, rust-testing
Publish or consume messages, add a worker	rust-nats, axum-service, rust-testing
Cache, lock, rate-limit, or make a POST idempotent	rust-redis, axum-service, rust-testing
Wire or debug logs, traces, and metrics	axum-service
Change lints, dependencies, or test commands	rust-tooling
Edit one of this repository's skills	AGENTS.md plus the skill being changed

Install As A Claude Code Plugin

The plugin manifest lives at .claude-plugin/plugin.json.

From GitHub:

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/DenysMoskalenko/rust-powers
claude plugin install rust-powers@rust-powers

Local development: install from a clean clone. A local install copies the directory whole, so a working copy with build output in it copies gigabytes.

git clone https://github.com/DenysMoskalenko/rust-powers
claude plugin marketplace add ./rust-powers
claude plugin install rust-powers@rust-powers

Installed plugins update when the plugin version changes, which every change to skills/ bumps.

After installation, the skills listed above are available to Claude Code via the Skill tool.

Install As A Codex Plugin

This repository is a Codex plugin marketplace. The marketplace file lives at .agents/plugins/marketplace.json, and the plugin manifest lives at .codex-plugin/plugin.json.

Codex app:

Open Plugins, add this GitHub marketplace, then install and enable Rust Powers:

https://github.com/DenysMoskalenko/rust-powers

Codex CLI:

codex plugin marketplace add DenysMoskalenko/rust-powers
codex plugin add rust-powers@rust-powers

Start a new Codex thread after installation so the skills are loaded.

Install As A Cursor Plugin

This repository is also importable as a Cursor plugin. The Cursor plugin manifest lives at .cursor-plugin/plugin.json and points Cursor at the root skills/ directory.

In a Cursor Agent chat, run:

/add-plugin rust-powers@https://github.com/DenysMoskalenko/rust-powers

For local testing, copy a clean clone of this repository to the path below. Cursor skips a symlink that points outside that folder.

~/.cursor/plugins/local/rust-powers

Then restart Cursor or run Developer: Reload Window.

Other Agents

Any agent that reads Agent Skills can install the nine skills directly:

npx skills add DenysMoskalenko/rust-powers

Development

Skill content is verified, not just proofread.

make check      # validate + snippets, what CI runs
make validate   # frontmatter, budgets, ownership hygiene, evals, STACK.md parity
make snippets   # compile and lint every ```rust,verify block, run every verified test
make lint       # prek run --all-files
make evals      # billed: run evals/ with and without the plugin via claude plugin eval

.github/workflows/check.yml runs the same two scripts — validate_skills.py --strict and check_snippets.py — plus prek run --all-files, on every push to main and every pull request.

make snippets regenerates the gitignored verify/ workspace from skills/rust-scaffolding/assets/app/, extracts every verifiable snippet into it, and runs cargo check, cargo clippy -- -D warnings, and cargo nextest run. The database-backed tests need a running Docker daemon or a TEST_DATABASE_URL pointing at a PostgreSQL the test user may create databases in; without either, run python3 scripts/check_snippets.py --skip-tests.

AGENTS.md (symlinked as CLAUDE.md) has the full house conventions and the checklist for adding or changing a skill. Per-skill acceptance scenarios live in evals/; make evals runs them against a model with and without the plugin, which costs real model calls, so it runs before a release rather than in CI. A tmp/ directory, when present, holds local research and review notes; it is untracked and not part of the plugin.

maintenance/release-audit.md is the release procedure the maintainer follows before tagging a version; it is repository documentation, not a shipped skill.

Principles

• One pick per concern, recorded in STACK.md, with the rejected alternatives written down.
• Clear ownership over duplicated rules.
• Examples that compile, because CI compiles them on every push and pull request.
• Skills terse enough for an agent to load and follow.
• Supporting material in references/ when it would bloat the main skill.

Contributing

Good contributions clarify an existing pattern, correct one that has drifted, reduce overlap between skills, or add reference material that supports an existing skill. Avoid app-specific conventions, one-off team workflows, unproven library recommendations, and claims about CI or release processes that are not represented here.

When changing a skill, read AGENTS.md first and keep the edit scoped to that skill's ownership.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.