Trouble accessing a binary in a crate

[ouillie]

I need to use the wit-bindgen executable from wit-bindgen-cli but I can't figure out why it won't work.

Here's an example in a single MODULE.bazel file:

module(name = "foo")

bazel_dep(name = "rules_rust", version = "0.49.1")
crate = use_extension("@rules_rust//crate_universe:extension.bzl", "crate")

# For these 2 crates, I can get the bin
# at e.g. `@crates//:protoc-gen-prost__protoc-gen-prost`
crate.spec(package = "protoc-gen-prost", version = "0.3.1")
crate.annotation(crate = "protoc-gen-prost", gen_binaries = ["protoc-gen-prost"])
crate.spec(package = "protoc-gen-tonic", version = "0.4.0")
crate.annotation(crate = "protoc-gen-tonic", gen_binaries = ["protoc-gen-tonic"])

# For this one, I can't.
# Uncommenting the annotation causes an error.
crate.spec(package = "wit-bindgen-cli", version = "0.29.0")
#crate.annotation(crate = "wit-bindgen-cli", gen_binaries = ["wit-bindgen"])

crate.from_specs()
use_repo(crate, "crates")

Uncommenting the annotation for wit-bindgen-cli causes the error: Error: Unused annotations were provided. Please remove them. So, rules_rust seems to think wit-bindgen-cli is not a dependency (verified with bazel query). Everything is fine for the first two. You can see all the generated targets with bazel query '@crates//...' --output build.

What is it about wit-bindgen-cli that makes it seemingly invisible to rules_rust?

[jgsogo]

I see the same error with diesel_cli:

bazel_dep(name = "rules_rust", version = "0.57.1", dev_dependency = True)

crate = use_extension("@rules_rust//crate_universe:extension.bzl", "crate")

crate.spec(package = "diesel_cli", version = "2.2.7")
crate.annotation(crate = "diesel_cli", gen_binaries = ["diesel"])
crate.from_specs(name = "crates_diesel_cli")
use_repo(crate, "crates_diesel_cli")

Note.- My project also has a crate.from_cargo with its corresponding Cargo.toml file

[mikn]

I had similar issues with another binary called tuftool, but after I adding artifact = "bin" to the .spec() call these two to the from_specs call, it worked fine:

    generate_binaries = True,
    host_tools_repo = "rust_host_tools_nightly",

So for diesel_cli, it would be:

crate.spec(artifact = "bin", package = "diesel_cli", version = "2.2.7")
crate.annotation(crate = "diesel_cli", gen_binaries = ["diesel"])
crate.from_specs(
    name = "crates_diesel_cli",
    generate_binaries = True,
    host_tools_repo = "rust_host_tools_nightly"
)
use_repo(crate, "crates_diesel_cli")

It is because they are binary crates rather than library crates. You can read more here: https://bazelbuild.github.io/rules_rust/crate_universe_bzlmod.html#binary-dependencies

[jgsogo]

Not working here 🤷 I also wrote in #3110 as it's kind of related.

I get the following error:

bazel run @bindeps//:diesel_cli-diesel -- --help


error: failed to parse manifest at `/var/folders/jj/j4d2plrj28z03nwl751rr_2c0000gn/T/.tmpLNQfeQ/Cargo.toml`

Caused by:
  `artifact = …` requires `-Z bindeps` (diesel_cli)

Error: Failed to generate lockfile

Caused by:
    Failed to fetch crates for lockfile: exit status: 101

bindeps is unstable cargo-feature, but I don't know how to pass it to my build.

[mikn]

The key point is this line;

    host_tools_repo = "rust_host_tools_nightly"

Which makes rules_rust assemble the external repository using a nightly version of the toolchain, which has bindeps activated. (bindeps is an unstable feature that you cannot activate in the stable branch of the Rust toolchain yet)

I saw in your other comment that you register only a stable toolchain, either you don't register a toolchain (and rules_rust will pick the latest stable and nightly) or you need to register both a stable and a nightly toolchain (to specify a nightly toolchain also I think (!) you can add it to the versions list like this: nightly-2025-02-17. - you may also need to register a host toolchain if you register a regular one, but I am not enough of an expert to say for sure)

I opted for the first option in my testing.