Set up Cargo and your editor

Native mise integration

With mise 2026.9.2 or newer:

mise use --global --tool-option mr_boxington=true rust mr-boxington

This enables ordinary Cargo commands through mise without running mbx setup. Use mise exec -- cargo build, mise run tasks, or a shell with mise activation or shims on PATH. Rust and mbx remain independently versioned. Drop --global for a project-scoped configuration.

Standalone setup

After installing mbx, run this to install a stable Cargo shim and configure rust-analyzer:

mbx setup
mbx setup --status

Setup offers explicit mise wrapper and rust-analyzer integration. It is useful for older mise versions or applications that need an absolute Cargo shim path. To try mbx without changing your setup, run mbx build directly.

Choose a scope

Command	Scope
mbx setup	Prompt for the recommended configuration
mbx setup --yes	Accept the recommendation
mbx setup --global	Global mise configuration
mbx setup --local	Current project's mise configuration

During mise use --postinstall, mbx setup --yes adds a [wrappers.cargo] entry to the configuration named by MISE_CONFIG_FILE. Otherwise, setup only integrates with mise when mise is activated in the current shell. It recommends the config that defines mr-boxington, then the nearest project config, and finally the global config. mbx setup prompts before using that recommendation; --yes accepts it. Without an active mise shell, setup prints the exact shell-specific PATH change and never edits a shell startup file. Setup runs mise reshim after adding or removing the wrapper.

The explicit wrapper written by mbx setup requires mise 2026.8.16 or newer.

Share setup with a project

With mise 2026.9.2 or newer, commit the tool option in the project's mise.toml:

[tools]
rust = { version = "stable", mr_boxington = true }
mr-boxington = "latest"

Keep the project's existing Rust version and other options when adding mr_boxington = true. Both tools must be configured. Run mise install, then use mise exec -- cargo build, project tasks with mise run, or plain cargo with mise activation or shims on PATH.

Set mr_boxington = false on the project's Rust entry to disable native wrapping there. An explicit [wrappers.cargo] takes precedence over the Rust option, including false. When migrating from mbx setup, remove the old mbx [wrappers.cargo] entry and its postinstall hook from the applicable config so the Rust option controls wrapping. Run mise reshim after migrating.

Verify plain Cargo

Open a new shell after setup and verify that Cargo resolves to mise's command wrapper, a mise shim, or the stable mbx shim, depending on how you activated it. On Unix:

command -v cargo
# ~/.local/share/mise/command-wrappers/bin/cargo on Linux

On Windows, use PowerShell or where.exe:

(Get-Command cargo).Path
where.exe cargo

mise activation supplies the command-wrapper path to shells where mise is active. The wrapper invokes mbx with Cargo shim mode enabled, then mise removes its dispatch directories before mbx delegates to the configured or system Cargo. Calling ~/.cargo/bin/cargo directly bypasses mise's integration.

Desktop applications and non-interactive commands

For coding agents, SSH commands, and other non-interactive tools, use mise exec -- cargo build or put mise's shims directory on their PATH. When using shims, command -v cargo resolves to the mise shim rather than the command-wrapper directory; both honor the Rust option.

Desktop applications such as Codex may inherit a different PATH from an interactive terminal. Check command -v cargo from a command run by the application itself. Configure its command environment to include mise's shims, or use mise exec -- cargo build for build commands. Restart the application after changing its inherited environment.

If you prefer mbx's standalone launcher, run mbx setup and prepend the directory it prints to the environment those processes use. For zsh, ~/.zshenv applies to interactive and non-interactive shells. For example, the default Linux location is:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/share/mbx/bin:$PATH"

On macOS, the default is different:

export PATH="$HOME/Library/Application Support/mbx/bin:$PATH"

Use the path setup prints if your data directory is customized.

Start a new process and run command -v cargo again. Once it resolves to the shim, ordinary cargo build, cargo test, and cargo check commands use mbx automatically. Prefixing a Cargo command with mbx, as in mbx build, still works.

Outside mise activation, the stable cargo launcher uses the setup-time mbx while it exists, then resolves the active mbx from PATH after an upgrade removes that path. Windows cargo.exe resolves the active mbx from PATH, with the setup-time path as a fallback. Upgrading a mise-managed mbx does not require running setup again.

rust-analyzer

The native mise option does not configure editor checks. Run mbx setup to configure rust-analyzer's background check in the matching global or project scope. The editor invokes the stable Cargo shim by its absolute path, so its build shares mbx's cache and machine-wide compiler pool even when the editor did not inherit mise's PATH. Its outputs go to target/rust-analyzer, separate from terminal builds so the two Cargo processes do not contend on the target-directory lock. When target is managed, the editor directory lives inside that view and is collected with it, while the shared store warms both builds. Existing rust-analyzer check settings are left unchanged.

Remove automatic wrapping

For native mise integration, remove mr_boxington or set it to false in each Rust tool entry where you enabled it, then run mise reshim. Keep the Rust version and any unrelated tool options. Do this before removing mr-boxington from [tools].

If you ran standalone setup as well:

mbx setup --uninstall

Use --global or --local to select a mise scope explicitly. Repeat for each scope you enabled, and remove any mbx PATH entry you added manually. Open a new shell and check Cargo's path again. Uninstalling activation does not remove the mbx executable or clear the cache.

Shell completions

Generate a completion script for bash, zsh, fish, or powershell:

mbx completion zsh > _mbx

Install the generated file in your shell's completion directory. The script is self-contained. See the completion reference.

For watch loops, debugger paths, and laptop budgets, continue to Local development.