Rust Performance

Use this skill for Rust optimization work that needs disciplined measurement, targeted changes, and explicit trade-offs, following the methodologies from The Rust Performance Book (https://nnethercote.github.io/perf-book/).

When to Use This Skill

• Runtime performance is too slow in --release
• Memory usage, allocation rate, or memcpy traffic is high
• Binary size needs to shrink
• Compile times are slow or regressing
• Profilers show confusing stacks, symbols, or hotspots
• HashMap, iterators, I/O, logging, or synchronization appear hot
• Inlining decisions need tuning (function call overhead is hot)
• Machine code inspection needed for bounds checks or missed vectorization
• You need a Rust-specific optimization workflow instead of generic advice

Core Workflow

1. Confirm the goal: runtime, memory, binary size, compile times, or a mix.
2. Confirm build context before drawing conclusions.
   • Runtime claims should come from --release.
   • Profiling builds should usually keep line info.
   • Build complaints may be caused by debuginfo, linker choice, or profile settings.
3. Measure before changing code.
   • Use benchmarks for comparisons and regressions.
   • Use profilers for hotspots.
   • Use heap profilers when allocation rate or peak memory looks suspicious.
   • Use compile-time tools when build speed is the problem.
4. Map the symptom to the most likely area.
5. Make the smallest high-confidence change first.
6. Re-measure after every change.
7. Capture fragile wins with comments, tests, or benchmark checks.

Symptom Triage

Slow in dev, acceptable in release

Start with references/build-configuration.md and references/compile-times.md.

• Check debuginfo level
• Check linker choice
• Consider a custom dev profile
• Avoid judging runtime from dev builds

Slow in release too

Start with references/measurement.md, then follow the hotspot.

• Hot CPU path -> measurement, collections, layout, or build tuning
• Hot call overhead -> inlining/build choices, but only after profiling
• Hot bounds or iterator adapters -> collections and iterators

High allocation rate or memory churn

Start with references/allocations-layout.md.

• Look for clone, to_owned, format!, growing Vec/String, and line-by-line allocation
• Reuse buffers and collections before reaching for exotic changes

HashMap or hashing is hot

Start with references/collections-iterators.md.

• Consider alternative hashers only when HashDoS is not a concern
• Measure hasher changes on real workloads

Slow file or terminal processing

Start with references/io-debugging.md.

• Lock stdout for repeated writes
• Buffer reads and writes
• Reuse line buffers
• Avoid heavy formatting or logging work on cold paths

Builds are slow

Start with references/compile-times.md and references/build-configuration.md.

• Use cargo build --timings
• Check linker, debuginfo, macro expansion, and LLVM IR bloat
• Reduce unnecessary monomorphization

Multi-core machine is underused

Start with references/parallelism.md.

• Confirm the bottleneck is worth parallelizing
• Check contention, allocator pressure, and memory locality first

Function call overhead is hot

Start with references/inlining-machine-code.md.

• Consider #[inline] or #[inline(always)] for small hot functions
• Use #[cold] to outline error paths
• Inspect generated machine code with Compiler Explorer or cargo-show-asm

Reference Map

• references/measurement.md - benchmarking, profiling, profiler hygiene, specific tools
• references/build-configuration.md - release settings, LTO, allocators, CPU tuning, binary size, faster builds
• references/allocations-layout.md - heap churn, type size, wrapper overhead, data layout, SmallVec/ThinVec
• references/collections-iterators.md - iterator costs, std type behavior, hashing trade-offs, alternative hashers
• references/io-debugging.md - buffering, line handling, logging, assertion overhead
• references/inlining-machine-code.md - inline attributes, cold, outlining, machine code inspection, SIMD
• references/parallelism.md - thread-level parallelism and synchronization trade-offs
• references/compile-times.md - timings, macros, monomorphization, linker wins
• references/general-principles.md - optimization mindset, guardrails, Clippy perf lints

Guardrails

• Do not optimize before establishing a measurement loop.
• Prefer release builds for runtime conclusions.
• Change one variable at a time when benchmarking.
• Prefer simple, idiomatic wins before advanced tricks.
• Treat unsafe, PGO, SIMD, manual hashing tricks, and aggressive inlining as late-stage tools.
• Call out trade-offs in speed, memory, compile time, debuggability, portability, and clarity.
• Keep non-obvious optimizations documented with the reason they help.

Key Techniques from The Rust Performance Book

Measurement First

Always establish a baseline before making changes:

• Use criterion.rs for statistical benchmarking
• Profile with tools like perf, Valgrind, or VTune
• Measure in --release mode for runtime conclusions
• Use wall-time, cycles, or instruction counts as appropriate

Build Configuration

Optimize Cargo.toml profiles:

[profile.release]
opt-level = 3
lto = "thin"        # or "fat" for maximum optimization
codegen-units = 1   # Better optimization, slower builds
incremental = false # Faster release builds
debuginfo = 0       # Strip debug info for smaller binaries
panic = "abort"     # Smaller binaries, faster unwinding

Memory Optimization

• Reuse buffers and allocations
• Prefer stack allocation when possible
• Use object pools for frequent allocations
• Minimize copying with slices and references
• Consider custom allocators for specific workloads

Binary Size Reduction

• Use panic = "abort" in Cargo.toml
• Enable LTO (Link Time Optimization)
• Strip symbols with strip or sstrip
• Remove unused dependencies with cargo tree
• Use #![no_std] when appropriate for embedded

Compile Time Optimization

• Reduce monomorphization with trait objects
• Limit generic code in hot paths
• Use incremental compilation during development
• Optimize build scripts and procedural macros
• Consider splitting large crates

CPU-Specific Optimizations

• Target specific CPU architectures: RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native"
• Enable SIMD with portable packed simd or platform intrinsics
• Profile-guided optimization (PGO) for hot paths
• Consider allocator tuning for your workload

Practical Defaults

• For runtime work: benchmark, profile, then optimize the hottest path.
• For allocation work: use a heap profiler and reuse buffers before redesigning architecture.
• For build work: fix link/debuginfo/profile settings before rewriting code.
• For container or CLI size work: review profile settings, panic = "abort", and stripping.
• For synchronization concerns: benchmark the actual primitive and contention pattern instead of assuming.

Key Tools