racli - a CLI tool for rust-analyzer
cargo install racliIn a Rust project folder, first run the server:
racli serverThen, to search for e.g. worker:
racli search workerIn the usual setup there are three pieces:
- rust-analyzer — the Language Server process that
racli serverdrives over LSP. - racli server — a long-running gRPC listener on a Unix socket (default
/tmp/racli.sock); it spawnsrust-analyzer, completes an LSPinitializehandshake with the current working directory as the workspace root, and serves RPCs to clients. - racli (client) — the same binary used in client mode: subcommands that connect to the socket and call the server.
Stop the server with Ctrl+C or SIGTERM to trigger LSP shutdown/exit and clean termination of the child.
A high-level diagram lives in docs/high-level-architecture.md.
racli server binds the gRPC Unix socket (default /tmp/racli.sock) and, when rust-analyzer is available on your PATH, spawns it as a child in the current working directory and completes the LSP initialize handshake described above.
These subcommands expect a running racli server at the default Unix socket path unless noted otherwise.
Runs LSP workspace/symbol through the server: the client calls gRPC Search, the server forwards the query to rust-analyzer, and the reply is a structured WorkspaceSymbolResponse mirroring lsp_types::WorkspaceSymbolResponse (either a flat list of symbol information or a nested list of workspace symbols). Symbols are scoped to the server's current working directory when racli server was started. By default, output is JSON (one array of symbol objects); use --text or --csv (or --output-format) for plain text or CSV. The default Unix socket is /tmp/racli.sock (same as racli version).
Separate alternative patterns with a single unescaped | (similar to grep -E), for example racli search 'Foo|Bar'. Each pattern is still a plain substring for rust-analyzer, not a full regular expression. A literal | in a pattern must be written as \| (a backslash before the pipe). Example: racli search 'a\|b|c' searches for the substring a|b and for c, then merges and dedupes the combined results.
Runs LSP textDocument/definition: the client calls gRPC FindDefinition with an absolute filesystem path (after canonicalizing PATH on the client) plus a 0-based line and 0-based UTF-16 character offset on that line, matching LSP Position. The server resolves the path again, builds a file:// URI, and returns a list of definition sites (scalar, array, and link-shaped LSP results are flattened to uri + range). Default output is JSON; pass --text for one human-readable line per location. Use the same workspace and socket rules as racli search; rust-analyzer must have indexed the crate (if the server just started, wait until analysis has caught up—for example until racli search returns symbols—before relying on definitions).
Prints the client version from the binary (CARGO_PKG_VERSION). If the server answers at the default socket, prints the server version from gRPC GetVersion. If the server is missing, errors, or does not respond within 10 seconds, a message is written to stderr and only the client line is printed to stdout.