Nifty Tools for Rust

Rust helpers next to rust-analyzer: organize and merge use imports, move items into module files, split inline modules, toggle derives, and see the latest crate versions in Cargo.toml.

Maintained. No sign-in. No telemetry. Works in VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium and other editors that use Open VSX.

Features

This extension works alongside rust-analyzer and doesn't repeat what it does (completion, diagnostics, go to definition, auto-import). It adds the file-level housekeeping that rust-analyzer leaves to you. Everything reads your code as text, so it works before the project builds, in huge workspaces, and in the browser.

• Organize Imports. Sorts, dedupes and merges use declarations into nested trees (use std::{fmt, io, io::Read};), in groups: std, core and alloc; other crates; crate::; super:: and self::. The merging follows rustfmt's imports_granularity (crate, module, item, preserve or one), and the order and line wrapping follow rustfmt, including the 2024 style edition's version sorting. If your rustfmt.toml sets imports_granularity or group_imports, that's what it uses. Otherwise imports are merged per crate, exactly as rustfmt does with imports_granularity = "Crate" (rustfmt's own default is to leave them as written).
  • #[cfg(…)] and other attributes stay on their imports, and only imports with the same attributes are merged.
  • Comments above or after an import stay with it.
  • pub use re-exports are kept apart from private imports.
  • Imports in inline modules (mod tests { … }) are organized too.
  • Run it from the command palette, the editor's context menu, VS Code's Organize Imports (Shift+Alt+O), or on save.
• Move Item to Module. Put the cursor on a function, struct, enum, trait, impl, type, const or static and choose Move … to module… from the light bulb. Pick an existing module (a file or an inline mod) or name a new one. The item moves with its doc comments and attributes, and:
  • the new file goes where your crate keeps modules, name.rs or name/mod.rs,
  • the imports and parent items it uses are imported in the module,
  • mod name; is added, and a use (or pub use for public items) keeps the code that uses it compiling,
  • private items, fields and methods become pub(super), so the parent keeps exactly the access it had.
• Move Inline Module to Its Own File. Turns mod tests { … } into mod tests; and a tests.rs (or tests/mod.rs), keeping #[cfg(test)] and other attributes where they belong.
• Change Derives. A checklist of Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq, PartialOrd, Ord, Hash, Default, serde's Serialize and Deserialize when the crate uses serde, and your own. What a derive needs comes along: Copy adds Clone, Ord adds PartialOrd, Eq and PartialEq.
• Latest crate versions in Cargo.toml. Hover a dependency to see its latest version on crates.io, whether your requirement includes it, its features, and links to docs.rs and crates.io. When a newer version is out of range, the light bulb updates the requirement (0.7 → 0.8) and keeps your style. Answers are cached for an hour; set nifty.rust.crates.checkLatest to false to keep the extension offline.

Commands

Settings

max_width, tab_spaces, hard_tabs and style_edition also come from rustfmt.toml, and the style edition follows your Cargo.toml edition like cargo fmt does.

Install

• VS Code: search for "Nifty Tools for Rust" in the Extensions view, or install from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
• Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium, Kiro, Antigravity: install from Open VSX.

Privacy

This extension collects no telemetry and needs no account. It only goes online to look up crate versions on crates.io when you hover a dependency in Cargo.toml, and you can turn that off.

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