tiny-update-check

A minimal, lightweight crate update checker for Rust CLI applications.

Why?

Existing update checker crates add significant binary bloat:

Crate	Binary Impact
tiny-update-check	~0.5MB
update-informer	~1.4MB
updates	~1.8MB

This crate achieves minimal size by:

• Using native-tls (system TLS) instead of bundling rustls
• Minimal JSON parsing (string search instead of serde)
• Simple file-based caching

Installation

[dependencies]
tiny-update-check = "0.1"

For pure-Rust TLS (larger binary, but better cross-compilation):

[dependencies]
tiny-update-check = { version = "0.1", default-features = false, features = ["rustls"] }

Usage

Simple

use tiny_update_check::check;

fn main() {
    // Check at end of your CLI's main function
    if let Ok(Some(update)) = check(env!("CARGO_PKG_NAME"), env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION")) {
        eprintln!("Update available: {} -> {}", update.current, update.latest);
    }
}

With Configuration

use tiny_update_check::UpdateChecker;
use std::time::Duration;

fn main() {
    let checker = UpdateChecker::new(env!("CARGO_PKG_NAME"), env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION"))
        .cache_duration(Duration::from_secs(60 * 60)) // 1 hour cache
        .timeout(Duration::from_secs(10));            // 10 second timeout

    match checker.check() {
        Ok(Some(update)) => {
            eprintln!("New version {} available!", update.latest);
            eprintln!("You have version {}", update.current);
        }
        Ok(None) => {} // Already on latest
        Err(e) => {
            // Silently ignore errors - don't disrupt the user's workflow
            log::debug!("Update check failed: {}", e);
        }
    }
}

Disable Caching

use tiny_update_check::UpdateChecker;
use std::time::Duration;

let checker = UpdateChecker::new("my-crate", "1.0.0")
    .cache_duration(Duration::ZERO);  // Always fetch fresh

Features

• native-tls (default) - Uses system TLS libraries, smaller binary
• rustls - Pure Rust TLS, no system dependencies

How It Works

1. Checks cache file (~/.cache/<crate>-update-check) for recent version info
2. If cache is stale (default: 24 hours), queries crates.io API
3. Compares versions using semver
4. Returns Some(UpdateInfo) if newer version exists

License

Licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE)
• MIT License (LICENSE-MIT)

at your option.