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Installing pre-built binaries

The quickest way to get going with nextest is to download a pre-built binary for your platform.

Installing via the install scripts

The easiest way to install nextest is to use the install script. We provide sh and PowerShell install scripts:

Run the following command in your shell. This also works on FreeBSD and illumos, and in Cygwin and Git Bash (MSYS) on Windows.

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/install.sh | sh -s --

This will install nextest to $CARGO_HOME/bin, or ~/.cargo/bin if CARGO_HOME isn't set.

To pass in options, add them after --. For example, to install the latest release in the 0.9 series:

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/install.sh | sh -s -- --version 0.9

Run the following command in your shell (both Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7 are supported):

irm https://get.nexte.st/install.ps1 | iex

This will install nextest to $env:CARGO_HOME\bin, or ~\.cargo\bin if CARGO_HOME isn't set.

To pass in options, run the script as a script block. For example, to install the latest release in the 0.9 series:

& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm https://get.nexte.st/install.ps1))) -Version 0.9

Install script options

Unix shell PowerShell Environment variable Description
--version <VERSION> -Version <VERSION> NEXTEST_INSTALL_VERSION The version to install: latest (the default), a version series like 0.9, or an exact version like 0.9.150.
--install-dir <DIR> -InstallDir <DIR> NEXTEST_INSTALL_DIR The directory to install nextest into.
--target <TRIPLE> -Target <TRIPLE> NEXTEST_INSTALL_TARGET The target triple to install, if you'd like a different build from the one that matches your system.

Options take precedence over environment variables. With install.sh, --help prints a summary of the options.

latest and version series like 0.9 only select stable releases. To stay on the 0.9 series and avoid breaking changes, use 0.9 (see the stability policy for more). To install a pre-release, pass its exact version, for example 0.9.152-b.1.

How the install scripts work
  • Choosing a build. Without --target, the build that matches your platform is installed. On Linux, if glibc is missing, or older than the standard build requires, the statically linked musl build is installed instead. On Windows, the build for your machine's native architecture is installed.
  • Verification. The download's SHA-256 checksum is verified before anything is installed.
  • Existing installs. An existing cargo-nextest binary in the install directory is replaced.
  • Your PATH. The install scripts don't modify your PATH. If the install directory isn't on your PATH, you'll see a message saying so.

The Unix install script requires curl, tar, and gunzip, along with one of sha256sum, shasum, sha256, digest, or openssl for checksum verification.

To update nextest after installing it, run cargo nextest self update. For more, see Updating nextest.

Downloading and installing from the release URLs

If you would like to avoid using the install script, nextest also provides stable release URLs for its binaries. The instructions below are suitable for both end users and CI.

If you have cargo-binstall available:

cargo binstall cargo-nextest --secure

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Run in a terminal:

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/linux | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

For a statically-linked binary with no runtime library dependencies, based on musl:

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/linux-musl | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Run in a terminal:

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/linux-arm | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

For a statically-linked binary with no runtime library dependencies, based on musl:

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/linux-arm-musl | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

Info

The command below assumes that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Run in a terminal:

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/mac | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

This will download a universal binary that works on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

Run in a terminal:

winget install nextest.cargo-nextest

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Run in PowerShell:

$tmp = New-TemporaryFile | Rename-Item -NewName { $_ -replace 'tmp$', 'zip' } -PassThru
Invoke-WebRequest -OutFile $tmp https://get.nexte.st/latest/windows
$outputDir = if ($Env:CARGO_HOME) { Join-Path $Env:CARGO_HOME "bin" } else { "~/.cargo/bin" }
$tmp | Expand-Archive -DestinationPath $outputDir -Force
$tmp | Remove-Item

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Using a Unix shell, curl, and tar natively on Windows (e.g. shell: bash on GitHub Actions, or Git Bash):

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/windows-tar | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) users should follow the Linux x86_64 instructions.

Other platforms

Run in a terminal:

winget install nextest.cargo-nextest

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Run in PowerShell:

$tmp = New-TemporaryFile | Rename-Item -NewName { $_ -replace 'tmp$', 'zip' } -PassThru
Invoke-WebRequest -OutFile $tmp https://get.nexte.st/latest/windows-arm
$outputDir = if ($Env:CARGO_HOME) { Join-Path $Env:CARGO_HOME "bin" } else { "~/.cargo/bin" }
$tmp | Expand-Archive -DestinationPath $outputDir -Force
$tmp | Remove-Item

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Using a Unix shell, curl, and tar natively on Windows (e.g. shell: bash on GitHub Actions, or Git Bash):

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/windows-arm-tar | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

Run in a terminal:

winget install nextest.cargo-nextest

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Run in PowerShell:

$tmp = New-TemporaryFile | Rename-Item -NewName { $_ -replace 'tmp$', 'zip' } -PassThru
Invoke-WebRequest -OutFile $tmp https://get.nexte.st/latest/windows-x86
$outputDir = if ($Env:CARGO_HOME) { Join-Path $Env:CARGO_HOME "bin" } else { "~/.cargo/bin" }
$tmp | Expand-Archive -DestinationPath $outputDir -Force
$tmp | Remove-Item

Info

The commands below assume that your Rust installation is managed via rustup. You can extract the archive to a different directory in your PATH if required.

If you'd like to stay on the 0.9 series to avoid breaking changes (see the stability policy for more), replace latest in the URL with 0.9.

Using a Unix shell, curl, and tar natively on Windows (e.g. shell: bash on GitHub Actions, or Git Bash):

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/windows-x86-tar | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

Run in a terminal:

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/linux-riscv64 | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/freebsd | tar zxf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

curl -LsSf https://get.nexte.st/latest/illumos | gunzip | tar xf - -C ${CARGO_HOME:-~/.cargo}/bin

As of 2025-04, the current version of illumos tar has a bug where tar zxf doesn't work over standard input.

Community-maintained binaries

These binaries are maintained by the community—thank you!

Run in a terminal on macOS or Linux:

brew install cargo-nextest

Run in a terminal:

pacman -S cargo-nextest

Using pre-built binaries in CI

Pre-built binaries can be used in continuous integration to speed up test runs.

Using nextest in GitHub Actions

The easiest way to install nextest in GitHub Actions is to use the Install Development Tools action maintained by Taiki Endo.

To install the latest version of nextest, add this to your job after installing Rust and Cargo:

- uses: taiki-e/install-action@nextest

See this in practice with nextest's own CI.

The action will download pre-built binaries from the URL above and add them to .cargo/bin.

To install a version series or specific version, use this instead:

- uses: taiki-e/install-action@v2
  with:
    tool: nextest
    ## version (defaults to "latest") can be a series like 0.9:
    # tool: nextest@0.9
    ## version can also be a specific version like 0.9.11:
    # tool: nextest@0.9.11

ANSI color codes

GitHub Actions supports ANSI color codes. To get color support for nextest (and Cargo), add this to your workflow:

env:
  CARGO_TERM_COLOR: always

For a full list of environment variables supported by nextest, see Environment variables.

Other CI systems

Install pre-built binaries on other CI systems by downloading and extracting the respective archives, using the commands above as a guide. See Release URLs for more about how to specify nextest versions and platforms.

Documentation

If you've made it easy to install nextest on another CI system, please feel free to submit a pull request with documentation.

Release URLs

The latest nextest release is available at:

Other platforms

Nextest's CI isn't run on these platforms -- these binaries most likely work but aren't guaranteed to do so.

These archives contain a single binary called cargo-nextest (cargo-nextest.exe on Windows). Add this binary to a location on your PATH.

For a full specification of release URLs, see Release URLs.

Code signing policy

Nextest's Windows binaries are digitally signed. Free code signing is provided by SignPath.io, and the certificate by SignPath Foundation.

This program will not transfer any information to other networked systems unless specifically requested by the user or the person installing or operating it, e.g. via the self-update feature.

  1. The standard Linux binaries target glibc, and have a minimum requirement of glibc 2.27 (Ubuntu 18.04). ↩↩