Run a Rust App

Space supports Rust Micros using using engine: custom in your Spacefile. You can use any Rust framework, like Axum. It’s important to note that your app has to run on port 8080. Feel free to use the PORT environment variable to automatically set the port.

A repository with a working example can be found here

Create a Space project

Make sure you have the Space CLI installed and set up. Then, in the root directory of your Rust project, run the following to create a Space project and an empty Spacefile:

Terminal window
space new

Configure your Spacefile

Configuring your project for Rust requires two steps. First, replace the contents of the Spacefile with the following:

# Spacefile Docs: https://go.deta.dev/docs/spacefile/v0
v: 0
micros:
  - name: main
    src: .
    engine: custom
    dev: cargo run
    commands:
      - cargo build --release
    run: ./nameofyourbinary
    include:
      - target/release/nameofyourbinary

Make sure to replace nameofyourbinary with the name of your binary. Feel free to adjust the commands and run to your needs.

Explanation of the Spacefile. We are:

  • using the custom engine, which allows us to run any command we want
  • building the Rust app using cargo build --release
  • running the binary that was created in the previous step
  • including the binary in the final image (using include)
  • setting src: . as the current directory is the root of the Rust project
  • specifying a command to run during development using dev

Second, create a .spaceignore file in the root of your project and add the following:

.git
target

Run it on Space

Now you can run your Rust app on Space:

Terminal window
space push

This will build your Rust app and push it to Space. You can now access your app at the URL provided by the CLI. The build process will take a few minutes, as it has to build the Rust app from scratch.

space push is the same command you would also use to update your app.

Done! ✨