This action lets you easily cross-compile Rust projects using cross.
Here's a simplified example from the test and release workflow for my tool ubi
:
jobs: release: name: Release - ${{ matrix.platform.os-name }} strategy: matrix: platform: - os-name: FreeBSD-x86_64 runs-on: ubuntu-24.04 target: x86_64-unknown-freebsd - os-name: Linux-x86_64 runs-on: ubuntu-24.04 target: x86_64-unknown-linux-musl - os-name: Linux-aarch64 runs-on: ubuntu-24.04 target: aarch64-unknown-linux-musl - os-name: Linux-riscv64 runs-on: ubuntu-24.04 target: riscv64gc-unknown-linux-gnu - os-name: Windows-x86_64 runs-on: windows-latest target: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc - os-name: macOS-x86_64 runs-on: macOS-latest target: x86_64-apple-darwin # more targets here ... runs-on: ${{ matrix.platform.runs-on }} steps: - name: Checkout uses: actions/checkout@v4 - name: Build binary uses: houseabsolute/actions-rust-cross@v1 with: command: build target: ${{ matrix.platform.target }} args: "--locked --release" strip: true - name: Publish artifacts and release uses: houseabsolute/actions-rust-release@v0 with: executable-name: ubi target: ${{ matrix.platform.target }}
Note that for Linux or BSD targets, you should always set the runs-on
key to a Linux x86-64 architecture runner.
If you only want to do native ARM compilation, for example using the ubuntu-24.04-arm
runner, then there's no need to use this action. However, if you want to compile for many platforms, including Linux ARM, using this action will simplify your config. This action is only tested on Ubuntu x86-64, Windows, and macOS runners.
This action takes the following parameters:
Key Type Required? Descriptioncommand
string no The command(s) to run. The default is build
. Running the test
command will fail with *BSD targets and non-x86 Windows. You can use any command supported by cargo
and/or cross
. For example, if you install cargo-deb
, the command can be deb
. Use the special string "both" to run both build
and `test. target
string yes The target triple to compile for. This should be one of the targets found by running rustup target list
. working-directory
string no The working directory in which to run the cargo
or cross
commands. Defaults to the current directory (.
). toolchain
string) no The Rust toolchain version to install. This is passed directly to dtolnay/rust-toolchain, which accepts many different options. See its documentation for more details. The default is stable
. GITHUB_TOKEN
string no Defaults to the value of ${{ github.token }}
. args
string no A string-separated list of arguments to be passed to cross build
, like --release --locked
. strip
boolean (true
or false
) no If this is true, then the resulting binaries will be stripped if possible. This is only possible for binaries which weren't cross-compiled. cross-version
string no This can be used to set the version of cross
to use. If specified, it should be a specific cross
release tag (like v0.2.3
) or a git ref (commit hash, HEAD
, etc.). If this is not set then the latest released version will always be used. If this is set to a git ref then the version corresponding to that ref will be installed. force-use-cross
boolean (true
or false
) no If this is true, then the action will use cross
even if it is not needed for the given target. If this is set to true
, then the resulting binary will not be stripped, regardless of whether strip
is true
or not. This only works on Linux hosts. Forcing the use of cross
on other hosts is not supported. use-rust-cache
boolean no Whether or not to use the Swatinem/rust-cache@v2
action. This defaults to true. rust-cache-parameters
string (containing JSON) no This must be a string containing valid JSON. The JSON should be an object where the keys are the parameters for the Swatinem/rust-cache@v2
action. Setting Environment Variables
By default, cross
passes most rust-related environment variables through when it runs cargo
in a Docker image. This means you can simply set an env
key in the workflow step that uses this action.
- name: Run build command
uses: houseabsolute/actions-rust-cross@v1
env:
CARGO_LOG: debug
RUSTFLAGS: "-g"
with:
command: build
If you want to pass other environment variables through, you will need to configure cross
to do see. See the cross
docs for more details.
Under the hood, this action will compile your binaries with either cargo
or cross
, depending on the host machine and target. For Linux builds, it will always use cross
except for builds targeting an x86 architecture like x86_64
or i686
.
On Windows and macOS, it's possible to compile for all supported targets out of the box, so cross
will not be used on those platforms.
If it needs to install cross
, it will install the latest version by downloading a release using my tool ubi
. This is much faster than using cargo
to build cross
.
When compiling on Windows, it will do so in a Powershell environment, which can matter in some corner cases, like compiling the openssl
crate with the vendored
feature.
When running cargo
on a Linux system, it will also include the output of running lsb_release --short --description
in the cache key. This is important for crates that link against system libraries. If those library versions change across OS versions (e.g. Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04), then the cache will be broken for these cases.
When running cross
, the hash of the cross
binary will be included in the cache key. This is done because the Docker images that cross
uses can change when cross
is updated. We want to make sure that we do not re-use the cache across changes when these images change.
Finally, it will run strip
to strip the binaries it builds if the strip
parameter is true. This is only possible for builds that are not done via cross
. In addition, Windows builds for aarch64
cannot be stripped either.
By default, this action will use the Swatinem/rust-cache@v2
action to cache compiled dependencies for a crate. Note that per the documentation for the rust-cache
action, it has fairly limited value for crates without a Cargo.lock
file. The key
parameter passed to this action will always include the value of the target
input. If you specify a key
parameter in rust-cache-parameters
, then the target
input will be appended to the value you specify.
In my testing, it seemed like in some cases restoring the cache would delete existing files in a target
directory. This manifested with this sequence of actions:
actions-rust-cross
to compile a crate in a top-level directory.actions-rust-cross
to compile a crate in a subdirectory.After step 2, the compiled binaries from step 1 were no longer present, sometimes. I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, but my recommendation is to structure your workflows so that this cannot affect you.
For example, if you have multiple crates, each of which builds a binary you want to release, then you can avoid this issue by structuring your workflow as follows:
actions-rust-cross
to compile crate A.actions-rust-cross
to compile crate B.When structured this way, it does not matter if the output of crate A is deleted in step 3.
Cross-Compiling from Linux ARM RunnersIn theory, this should work, and this action does implement some of the necessary work for this. However, there are a couple issues with this:
cross
project does not publish Linux ARM binary releases. That means that in order to use cross
on a Linux ARM runner as part of this action, you must set cross-version
to a more recent commit from the cross
repo.cross
that means you must use a custom Docker image when cross-compiling from a Linux ARM runner. See this other cross
issue for more details.The code in this repo is linted and tidied with precious
. This repo contains a mise.toml
file. Mise is a tool for managing dev tools with per-repo configuration. You can install mise
and use it to run precious
as follows:
# Installs mise
curl https://mise.run | sh
# Installs precious and other dev tools
mise install
Once this is done, you can run precious
via mise
:
# Lints all code
mise exec -- precious lint -a
# Tidies all code
mise exec -- precious tidy -a
If you want to use mise
for other projects, see its documentation for more details on how you can configure your shell to always activate mise
.
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