Question 1

Does Rust need static analysis if the compiler already catches so much?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Rust compiler catches memory safety and type errors, but it cannot tell you that a panic is waiting to happen in a library, that a blocking call is held across an await, that a dependency only resolves on your machine, or that TLS verification was disabled. Rust Doctor scans for those with 62 curated rules and ends with a single score out of 100 and the three rules worth fixing first.

Question 2

How do I measure Rust code quality?

Accepted Answer

Rust Doctor gives any Cargo workspace a 0-100 health score. The score is a weighted average across 5 dimensions (Security, Reliability, Maintainability, Performance, Dependencies), security weighing the most. Each dimension deducts 1.5 points per distinct error rule, 0.75 per warning, and 0.25 per info. Above 75 is healthy, 50-74 needs work, below 50 is critical. Run 'npx -y rust-doctor@latest .' at your project root to get your score.

Question 3

What is a Rust health score?

Accepted Answer

A Rust health score is a single 0-100 metric summarizing the state of a Rust codebase. Rust Doctor computes it from distinct rules violated, not from raw diagnostic counts, so fixing every occurrence of one issue removes that entire penalty and a large codebase is not penalized for being large. The score is only published as authoritative when every pass completed; a failed pass reports the failure instead of guessing.

Question 4

How does Rust Doctor compare to Clippy?

Accepted Answer

Rust Doctor runs Clippy for you, but it publishes 37 curated lints rather than the whole set, each admitted on measured precision against ten pinned public repositories. It adds 25 native detectors Clippy does not cover: manifest and .cargo/config.toml health, near-duplicate code families, repository hygiene, and source-level checks. All of it lands as one ranked report and one score.

Question 5

Can I use Rust Doctor with AI coding assistants?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The interactive report has an agent handoff: it composes a bounded brief of the top findings, with rule identifiers and file locations, and copies it to your clipboard for Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor. Rust Doctor exists for codebases where an agent writes most of the Rust, so the report is built to be handed to one.

Question 6

How do I add Rust Doctor to CI/CD?

Accepted Answer

The interactive report can write .github/workflows/rust-doctor.yml for you, and it never overwrites an existing file. The workflow scans pull requests in baseline scope, so only what the change introduces is judged and the existing backlog stays out of the contributor's way. The step exits with the tool's own exit code, which is non-zero only when a diagnostic reaches the blocking level you set with --blocking.

Question 7

How do I track technical debt in a Rust project?

Accepted Answer

Rust Doctor quantifies debt as a health score: 100 means nothing detected, and each of the five dimensions contributes independently, so you can see where the debt sits. Because the score counts distinct rules, it does not drift as the codebase grows. Run it in CI with --scope baseline to keep new debt out while you pay down the old.

Question 8

What issues does Rust Doctor catch that other tools miss?

Accepted Answer

Panics waiting to happen, blocking calls held across an await, disabled TLS verification, dependencies that only resolve on one machine, missing lockfiles, and near-duplicate code families reported as one finding rather than as pairs. It runs entirely on your machine: no network, no upload, no telemetry.

Rust Doctor: know if your Rust code is actually healthy.

Reviews every pull request

Blocks regressions before they merge