r — Interactively Manage Your Rust Versions

r is a simple, no-fuss Rust version manager. Download, cache, and switch between Rust toolchain versions with a single command. No need to have Rust pre-installed — grab a pre-built binary and bootstrap from there.

Features

• Install any released Rust toolchain by version, alias, or nightly/beta
• Interactive version picker (arrow keys)
• Version caching — no re-downloading
• Symlink-based activation — exposes rustc, cargo, rustfmt, clippy, rustdoc, and the full toolchain
• List local and remote versions
• Run a specific version without activating it

Supported Platforms

OS	Architectures
Linux	x86_64, aarch64
macOS	x86_64, aarch64
Windows	x86_64, aarch64

Installation

Pre-built binary (no Rust required)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/THernandez03/r/main/install.sh | sh

This installs r to ~/.local/bin/r. You can override the destination:

INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/THernandez03/r/main/install.sh | sh

From source (requires Rust)

cargo install --git https://github.com/THernandez03/r

Manual

Download the latest binary from Releases and place it in your PATH.

Setup

Add both directories to your PATH:

# bash / zsh
export R_PREFIX="$HOME/.r"
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"   # for the r binary
export PATH="$R_PREFIX/bin:$PATH"      # for managed Rust toolchain binaries

Important

zsh defines a built-in alias r for fc -e - (history re-execution). Add disable r after your PATH exports so the r binary takes precedence:

disable r

Optional environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
R_PREFIX	~/.r	Root installation prefix
R_CACHE_DIR	~/.r/versions	Where downloaded toolchains are stored

Usage

# Install and activate a version
r 1.87.0
r stable
r nightly
r beta

# Interactive picker from cached versions
r

# List cached versions
r ls

# List recent remote versions
r ls-remote

# Fetch into cache without activating
r fetch 1.87.0

# Show path to the cached rustc binary
r which stable

# Run a specific version's rustc
r run 1.86.0 -- --version

# Remove a cached version (interactive picker if no version given)
r remove 1.86.0
r rm 1.86.0         # alias

# Remove all except active
r prune

# Also remove the active version
r prune --force

# Show info
r info

# Update r itself
r update

# Fully remove r + all cached versions (requires confirmation)
r uninstall
r uninstall --yes   # skip confirmation prompt

Version Aliases

Alias	Resolves to
stable	Latest stable release
latest	Same as stable
lts	Same as stable
beta	Current beta toolchain
nightly	Latest nightly build
canary	Same as nightly
next	Same as nightly
edge	Same as nightly
1.87	Latest patch in 1.87.x
v1.87.0	Exact version (no network needed)

How It Works

r downloads prebuilt Rust toolchains from static.rust-lang.org, caches them under ~/.r/versions/<version>/, and creates symlinks at ~/.r/bin/ exposing rustc, cargo, rustfmt, clippy, and rustdoc from the selected toolchain.

No subshells. No profile setup. Just symlinks.

Related Projects

Project	Runtime
n	Node.js version manager
b	Bun version manager
z	Zig version manager
d	Deno version manager

License

MIT