🩸 Ferritin

A terminal-based Rust documentation viewer

Ferritin reads rustdoc JSON output to display Rust documentation directly in your terminal. It supports local workspace crates, standard library documentation, and crates from crates.io, with search functionality and modern terminal features including mouse support, syntax highlighting, and clickable links.

Features

• Interactive documentation browser with keyboard and mouse navigation
• One-shot CLI for quick documentation lookups in the terminal
• Search across crates or within specific crates
• Works seamlessly across three contexts:
  • Local workspace crates (requires nightly toolchain)
  • Standard library (requires rust-docs-json rustup component)
  • Crates from crates.io (fetched from docs.rs on demand)
• Modern terminal UI with features like italics, unicode box drawing, syntax highlighting, OSC8 hyperlinks, cursor changes in terminals that support it, and mouse hover previews
• Fast navigation with history and breadcrumb trail

Installation

Prebuilt binary (recommended)

Prebuilt binaries skip compilation and are available for x86_64/aarch64 macOS, x86_64 Linux, and x86_64 Windows.

If you have cargo-binstall, it reads the release metadata and installs the right binary for your platform:

cargo binstall ferritin

Otherwise, the installer scripts detect your platform, download the matching binary, and place it in ~/.cargo/bin:

macOS and Linux:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/jbr/ferritin/releases/download/ferritin-latest/ferritin-installer.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

powershell -c "irm https://github.com/jbr/ferritin/releases/download/ferritin-latest/ferritin-installer.ps1 | iex"

Both of the above always install the most recent release. You can also pick a specific version or download archives directly from the releases page.

From source

To build from source (or for a platform without a prebuilt binary):

cargo install ferritin

Optional: Standard library documentation

To view documentation for std, core, and alloc:

rustup component add rust-docs-json

For local workspace documentation

Local crate documentation requires a nightly toolchain:

rustup toolchain install nightly

Note: There is a relationship between ferritin's version and the nightly toolchain version. Ferritin currently supports rustdoc JSON format versions 55, 56, and 57. If your nightly generates a newer format, ferritin won't be able to build local documentation until support is added.

Usage

Interactive mode

Launch the interactive browser:

ferritin -i

Once running, use h or ? to see available keybindings. Basic navigation:

• g - go to an item by path (e.g., std::vec::Vec)
• s - search (Tab to toggle between current crate and all crates)
• l - list available crates
• Arrow keys, j/k, or mouse to navigate
• Click on links to follow them

CLI mode

View documentation for a specific item:

ferritin get std::vec::Vec
ferritin get serde::Serialize

Search for items:

ferritin search "hash map"
ferritin search --crate tokio "spawn"

List available crates in your workspace:

ferritin list

Caching and Storage

Ferritin caches documentation JSON files to avoid repeated downloads and builds:

• Crates.io documentation: Cached in $CARGO_HOME/rustdoc-json/{format-version}/{crate_name}/{crate_version}.json
• Search indices: Binary .index files are generated lazily on first search and stored alongside JSON files
• Standard library search indices: Written to {rustc sysroot}/share/doc/rust/json/ if available

The cache uses cargo's home directory (typically ~/.cargo on Unix systems).

Current Status

Ferritin is at version 0.x and actively used by the author as a primary documentation interface. It's ready for general use, though the output format should be considered unstable and may change between versions.

If you're scripting against ferritin's output, be aware that the text format may change. Pin to a specific version or be prepared to update your scripts.

Platform Support

Ferritin is developed primarily on Unix-like systems and is also tested on Windows, where both the CLI and interactive TUI work (prebuilt x86_64 Windows binaries are provided). If you encounter issues on any platform, please open an issue or pull request.

Related Projects

Ferritin was originally developed to support the rustdoc-mcp MCP server, which provides Rust documentation access for Claude Code and other MCP clients.

License

^{Licensed under either of Apache License, Version 2.0 or MIT license at your option.}

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_{Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in this crate by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.}