# Install snapdir for Rust

Rust is snapdir's native home: the binding is `snapdir-api`, the stable async
facade over `snapdir-core` that every other binding wraps through the C ABI.
Because it is a plain crate published to crates.io, `cargo` compiles it from
source like any dependency — no `cbindgen`, no C toolchain, no post-install
step. You get the same BLAKE3 walk, manifests, and 64-character snapshot IDs as
the CLI.

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## Install

Add the [`snapdir-api`](https://crates.io/crates/snapdir-api) crate to your
project. The distribution operations (`push`, `pull`, `fetch`, `diff`, `sync`)
are `async`, so pair it with an async runtime such as
[Tokio](https://crates.io/crates/tokio):

```sh
cargo add snapdir-api
cargo add tokio --features full   # async runtime for push/pull/fetch/diff/sync
```

That is the whole install: `cargo build` compiles the crate from source the
same way it does any dependency. There is no native blob to vendor and no
`snapdir-ffi` build step — that C ABI recipe is only for the C/C++, Zig, and Go
bindings, which wrap this same crate through its C surface. If you need that C
ABI directly (for your own FFI), add it with `cargo add snapdir-ffi`.

The sync operations — `id`, `manifest`, `id_from_manifest`, `stage` — need no
runtime and can be called from ordinary synchronous code.

## Platform support

Every binding runs on Linux (glibc and Alpine/musl, x64 and arm64) and macOS;
Windows is unsupported, since snapdir is Unix-only.

| Platform | Supported |
| --- | --- |
| Linux glibc (x64 + arm64) | yes |
| Linux musl / Alpine (x64 + arm64) | yes |
| macOS | yes |
| Windows | no |

The Rust binding builds and links on glibc and musl alike.

## Next

- [Rust quickstart](/quickstart/rust/) — a 60-second push → pull round-trip.
- [snapdir for Rust](/bindings/rust/) — the full binding reference.