RustMaui

Rust superpowers for .NET MAUI 🍬🌴

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RustMaui brings the performance, safety, and joy of Rust directly into your .NET MAUI applications on Android, iOS, MacCatalyst and Windows.

It's a combination of cross-platform Rust build support and bindings generators and includes everything you need:

• A friendly dotnet tool for instant setup
• Automatic build-time Rust bindings generation
• Optional dotnet new template for new projects

Read the article behind this project

Quick Start

Install the tool

dotnet tool install --global RustMaui

Update Older Version

dotnet tool update --all

Create a new MAUI + Rust app

rustmaui new MyAwesomeApp

Or add Rust boilerplate to an existing MAUI project

rustmaui init .

How this works

Init

When you create MAUI+Rust app from template or add Rust support to an existing app, simple Rust files are created and added to your solution. Appropriate package is added to your MAUI app to handle Rust build and auto-generate Rust bindings.

MyApp/
├── src/
│   └── MauiRust/
│       ├── AppShell.xaml
│       ├── MainPage.xaml
│       ├── MainPage.xaml.cs
│       ├── Rust.cs <-- override bindings here
│       ├── Rust.Generated.cs <--  auto-generated bindings
│       └── MauiRust.csproj
├── rust/
│   ├── Cargo.toml
│   └── lib.rs <--  add exported Rust code here
└── MyApp.sln

Build

Your Rust library will be automatically built and packaged along with your MAUI project on Android, iOS, MacCatalyst or Windows. Prerequisites apply.

On Apple targets, RustMaui uses one consistent model:

• iOS device and iOS simulator: Rust is linked as a static archive and imported from __Internal
• MacCatalyst: Rust is bundled as a dynamic library and imported by library name

If you write custom Rust platform-specific loading code, treat all iOS targets as the static-link path and reserve dynamic loading behavior for MacCatalyst.

Edit

On first build the generator creates Rust.cs if it is missing and regenerates Rust.Generated.cs on every build.

If you want a different base name, set RustBindingsName in your app project. For example, RustBindingsName=MyBindings gives you MyBindings.cs, MyBindings.Generated.cs, and a MyBindings partial class.

Write a Rust export:

#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn compute_me(value: f32) -> f32 {
    value * 2.0
}

The generator automatically emits a C# binding following .NET naming conventions:

// Rust.Generated.cs — do not edit
[LibraryImport(Lib, EntryPoint = "compute_me")]
[UnmanagedCallConv(CallConvs = new[] { typeof(System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CallConvCdecl) })]
public static partial float ComputeMe(float value);

Call it directly from your .NET code:

var result = Rust.ComputeMe(3.14f);

Packages

RustMaui

The primary entry point: a .NET tool for both greenfield and existing-app setup.

• install with dotnet tool install --global RustMaui
• run rustmaui new MyApp to create a new app from the shared scaffold
• run rustmaui init path/to/MyApp.csproj to add Rust boilerplate and RustMaui.Generators to an existing app

Package docs: src/RustMaui.Tool/README.md.

RustMaui.Generators

Build-time package that discovers Rust exports, creates the user-owned companion file when missing, generates the bindings file, and wires Rust native build targets.

• ships the generator/build package
• packs build/RustMaui.Generators.targets
• produces the analyzer/build assets consumed by MAUI apps

Package docs: src/RustMaui.Generators/README.md.

RustMaui.Templates

An optional dotnet new template package for new-app-only flows. It scaffolds a MAUI app already configured to use the generator package.

• ships the dotnet new rustmaui template
• carries the scaffold under src/RustMaui.Templates/content/MauiRust
• emits a scaffolded app that references RustMaui.Generators

Package docs: src/RustMaui.Templates/README.md

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Contribute

Please feel free to bring in your works, we need you!

Development Commands

Pack all three packages:

.\dev\pack-all.ps1

Pack one package:

.\dev\pack.ps1 -Project src/RustMaui.Generators/RustMaui.Generators.csproj

Validate the template against locally packed packages:

.\dev\validate-template.ps1

That validator packs all three packages, installs the local template package, generates a temporary app outside the repo tree, reuses the local package folder as a NuGet source, and runs a Windows build against the generated app.

The template remains available, but the preferred install path for end users is dotnet tool install --global RustMaui.

See nugets.md for the shared GitHub Actions release workflow and required secrets.

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