rust-profiling

Rust Profiling

Purpose

Guide agents through Rust performance profiling: flamegraphs via cargo-flamegraph, binary size analysis, monomorphization bloat measurement, Criterion microbenchmarks, and interpreting profiling results with inlined Rust frames.

Triggers

• "How do I generate a flamegraph for a Rust program?"
• "My Rust binary is huge — how do I find what's causing it?"
• "How do I write Criterion benchmarks?"
• "How do I measure monomorphization bloat?"
• "Rust performance is worse than expected — how do I profile it?"
• "How do I use perf with Rust?"

Workflow

1. Build for profiling

# Release with debug symbols (needed for readable profiles)
# Cargo.toml:
[profile.release-with-debug]
inherits = "release"
debug = true

cargo build --profile release-with-debug

# Or quick: release + debug info inline
CARGO_PROFILE_RELEASE_DEBUG=true cargo build --release

2. Flamegraphs with cargo-flamegraph

# Install
cargo install flamegraph

# Linux: uses perf (requires perf_event_paranoid ≤ 1)
sudo sh -c 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid'
cargo flamegraph --bin myapp -- arg1 arg2

# macOS: uses DTrace (requires sudo)
sudo cargo flamegraph --bin myapp -- arg1 arg2

# Profile tests
cargo flamegraph --test mytest -- test_filter

# Profile benchmarks
cargo flamegraph --bench mybench -- --bench

# Output
# Generates flamegraph.svg in current directory
# Open in browser: firefox flamegraph.svg

Custom flamegraph options:

# More samples
cargo flamegraph --freq 1000 --bin myapp

# Filter to specific threads
cargo flamegraph --bin myapp -- args 2>/dev/null

# Using perf directly for more control
perf record -g -F 999 ./target/release-with-debug/myapp args
perf script | stackcollapse-perf.pl | flamegraph.pl > out.svg

3. Binary size analysis with cargo-bloat

# Install
cargo install cargo-bloat

# Show top functions by size
cargo bloat --release -n 20

# Show per-crate size breakdown
cargo bloat --release --crates

# Include only specific crate
cargo bloat --release --filter myapp

# Compare before/after a change
cargo bloat --release --crates > before.txt
# make changes
cargo bloat --release --crates > after.txt
diff before.txt after.txt