warn when cargo subcommand backing binary is not part of the criticalup installation by emig · Pull Request #176 · ferrocene/criticalup

emig · 2026-05-21T11:58:37Z

Emits a warning if:

criticalup run (--strict) cargo clippy is run but cargo-clippy is not installed via criticalup.
criticalup run (--strict) cargo fmt is run but rustfmt is not installed via criticalup.

Problem

When clippy is available via rustup, but not installed via Ferrocene, running
criticalup run cargo clippy will fallback to using rustup's installed clippy , potentially resulting in crates compiled with an incompatible version of rustc (compared to the version clippy was compiled with).

Replication steps

Install rustup stable
install Ferrocene packages via criticalup, with the following configuration, which doesn't include clippy

manifest-version = 1

[products.ferrocene]
release = "stable-25.08.0"
packages = [
    "cargo-${rustc-host}",
    "rustc-${rustc-host}",
    "rustfmt-${rustc-host}",
    "rust-std-${rustc-host}",
]

Run criticalup run (--strict) cargo clippy

The compiler complains of having libraries compiled with an incompatible rustc version

error[E0514]: found crate `elliptic_curve` compiled by an incompatible version of rustc                                        
 --> crates/criticaltrust/src/keys/algorithms/ecdsa_p256_sha256_asn1_spki_der.rs:7:5                                           
  |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
7 | use elliptic_curve::pkcs8::{DecodePrivateKey, DecodePublicKey, EncodePrivateKey, EncodePublicKey};
  |     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                         
  |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
  = note: the following crate versions were found:                                                                                                                                                                                                            
          crate `elliptic_curve` compiled by rustc 1.88.0 (4a1d753a8 2025-09-29) (Ferrocene by Ferrous Systems): /home/emir/Github/ferrocene/public/criticalup/target/debug/deps/libelliptic_curve-a7d5321835367b5b.rmeta                                     
  = help: please recompile that crate using this compiler (rustc 1.93.1 (01f6ddf75 2026-02-11)) (consider running `cargo clean` first)

How to test this PR

Follow the mentioned replication steps
With this PR changes the following warning is expected:

WARN 'cargo-clippy' is not installed for this project, and may run from binaries outside the criticalup installation.
To prevent this, please make sure that the correct package for 'cargo-clippy' is listed in the packages section of your
project's criticalup.toml and run 'criticalup install' command again.

Note: In this example, if criticalup is linked as a rustup toolchain and used (is active), both a warning and an actual error will be returned. The later is due to the cargo-clippy binary missing in the path

Fixes the test by passing the path to the configuration in the temporary folder. Remove ignore flag. Other tests will be added later based on this test.

Backing binary is a binary used by a cargo subcommand. It is resolved from PATH. If ARG is `clippy` or `fmt` and is called via the `criticalup run cargo (--strict) <ARG>` and its backing binary is not present in the criticalup installation emits an warning indicating the package is missing from the criticalup installation.

emig · 2026-05-26T09:19:45Z

bors try

bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-26T09:25:01Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T10:38:54Z

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bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-26T10:44:32Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T11:56:44Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T12:02:55Z

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bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-26T12:02:59Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T12:05:33Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T12:06:30Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T12:35:34Z

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bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-26T12:38:40Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T12:39:11Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T12:42:56Z

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bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-26T12:43:54Z

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dotcarmen · 2026-05-26T13:03:33Z

+            if let Some(backing_binary) = cargo_subcommand_map.get(arg.as_str()) {
+                if !bin_paths.iter().any(|x| x.join(backing_binary).exists()) {
+                    tracing::warn!("'{0}' is not installed for this project, and may run from binaries outside the criticalup installation.\n \
+                    To prevent this, please make sure that the correct package for '{0}' is listed in the packages section of your \n\
+                    project's criticalup.toml and run 'criticalup install' command again.\n",  backing_binary);
+                }
+            }


sorry if this has already been discussed

do we instruct users to always use criticalup run cargo ...? if not, then maybe the better solution is shimming cargo to detect this problem, which would allow cargo fmt in a ferrocene project to raise this warning

another approach is to install shims for these tools unless requested. the shims will print this message and run the fallback component (is there a tool we can ask to resolve this?). when the user specifically requests the component, then we can provide our installation of the tool

We document 3 ways of running Ferrocene packages . Only if you run criticalup run cargo subcommand it is possible to use inadvertently a non Ferrocene distributed binary called by the sub-command. The current set of sub-commands affected are clippy and fmt. The current solution has small footprint, and we can revisit it in case we need to manage an increasing number of cases

emig · 2026-05-26T13:09:56Z

bors try

bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-26T13:15:02Z

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emig · 2026-05-26T13:24:14Z

bors try

bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-26T13:34:47Z

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Build succeeded:

CI build successful

dotcarmen

lgtm

emig · 2026-05-28T06:46:46Z

bors merge

bors-ferrocene · 2026-05-28T06:56:22Z

Build succeeded:

CI build successful

Activate ignored test.

d865c02

Fixes the test by passing the path to the configuration in the temporary folder. Remove ignore flag. Other tests will be added later based on this test.

emig force-pushed the fix/clippy-not-installed-fallback-to-rustup branch 3 times, most recently from 968b2c6 to 0e83243 Compare May 22, 2026 12:07

emig changed the title ~~fix/clippy not installed fallback to rustup~~ warn when cargo subcommand backing binary is not part of the criticalup installation May 22, 2026

emig force-pushed the fix/clippy-not-installed-fallback-to-rustup branch from 0e83243 to 2887714 Compare May 22, 2026 12:44

emig requested review from Hoverbear and dotcarmen May 22, 2026 12:45

emig marked this pull request as ready for review May 22, 2026 12:48

emig requested a review from Xylakant May 22, 2026 12:48

Hoverbear previously approved these changes May 22, 2026

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emig dismissed Hoverbear’s stale review via bd07850 May 26, 2026 12:02

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emig force-pushed the fix/clippy-not-installed-fallback-to-rustup branch from bd07850 to 5b01659 Compare May 26, 2026 13:21

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bors-ferrocene Bot merged commit a5a9994 into main May 28, 2026
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