bacon

bacon is a background code checker for Rust projects. It watches your source files and automatically reruns cargo check, cargo clippy, cargo test, or any other command when changes are detected — displaying errors and warnings in a clean, distraction-free terminal UI.

The key philosophy is that it runs in a separate terminal, out of your way, so you can keep your editor focused and just glance over to see if your code compiles.

Features

• Automatic re-checking — watches source files and reruns on every save
• Multiple jobs — switch between check, clippy, test, and custom commands with a keypress
• Clean output — filters and formats compiler errors for readability
• Configurable — define custom jobs in a bacon.toml per project
• Summary mode — shows just the error/warning count when the terminal is narrow
• Vim-style navigation — scroll through errors without leaving the terminal

Installation

cargo install bacon

# Debian / Fedora — no official package; use cargo install or download a binary from the releases page.

Usage

Run bacon in your project root and it will start checking immediately:

# Run cargo check in the background
bacon

# Run clippy instead
bacon clippy

# Run tests
bacon test

# Run a specific test
bacon test -- my_test_name

Switching jobs at runtime

While bacon is running, press:

• c — switch to cargo check
• l — switch to cargo clippy
• t — switch to cargo test
• r — rerun the current job manually
• q — quit

Configuration

Create a bacon.toml in your project root to define custom jobs:

[jobs.check]
command = ["cargo", "check", "--all-targets", "--all-features"]
watch = ["src", "tests", "benches"]

[jobs.clippy]
command = ["cargo", "clippy", "--all-targets", "--all-features"]

[jobs.test]
command = ["cargo", "test"]
need_stdout = true

[jobs.doc]
command = ["cargo", "doc", "--no-deps"]
need_stdout = false

[keybindings]
d = "job:doc"