RustPad

A Rust scratchpad for Windows, in the spirit of LINQPad. Type a few lines of Rust, press F5, and see the result: no project, no Cargo.toml, no fn main. Values dump as tables and trees, charts draw inline, crates come from crates.io through a search dialog, and #[test] functions run with one button.

• 200 runnable templates: learning Rust (with C# comparisons), engineering calculations, data and files, web APIs, LLMs, concurrency, performance
• A real code editor: rust-analyzer completion, hover, go to definition, rename, quick fixes, rustfmt
• Ask AI: chat with Claude or OpenAI about the open tab; it edits the code in place, runs it and fixes its own mistakes (bring your own API key, stored encrypted)
• An MCP server so Claude Code can read, edit and run your tabs
• Export any script as a Cargo project or a standalone .exe

Whole projects too

Open a Cargo project or workspace folder and RustPad works as an IDE for it:

• An explorer with Files, Search (find and replace in files), Problems, Outline and Git tabs
• Ctrl+P to open a file, Ctrl+T for a symbol, F12 / Shift+F12 / Ctrl+F12 for definitions, references and implementations across crates, Alt+Left to go back
• Rename across files, code folding, inlay type hints, live problems from rust-analyzer
• Check, Build, Test, Run, Clippy and Bench for any target, with features, arguments and environment; a run button on every test
• Git: changed lines in the margin, diffs, stage and commit (no push or history rewriting)
• Nothing in your project changes until you save

Install

Run in PowerShell:

irm https://shakytext.com/rustpad/install.ps1 | iex

That downloads RustPad, checks its checksum, installs it for your account only (no administrator prompt) to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\RustPad, and adds it to the Start Menu and to Settings › Apps. If Rust is not installed it offers to install it through rustup, also per-user. Re-run the same line any time to update; your open tabs come back.

Or grab the files directly: RustPad.zip (SHA-256) · README

Letting Claude Code use it

claude mcp add rustpad -- "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\RustPad\rustpad-mcp.exe" --attach

Claude can then list your tabs, read and change their code (Ctrl+Z undoes it) and run them, after you allow it in the dialog RustPad shows.

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. Needs Rust (rustup); without Visual Studio's C++ build tools the installer picks the GNU toolchain, which needs nothing else. Your scripts, settings and keys stay in %USERPROFILE%\.rustpad and are kept when you update or uninstall.