rust-best-practices

Idiomatic error handling uses `thiserror` for libraries to define custom error types and `anyhow` at application boundaries for flexible error propagation. Avoid generic `Box<dyn Error>` to preserve type information and enable clearer error handling paths.

Common ownership pitfalls include partial borrows that prevent later use of the full value and overly broad borrow scopes that extend past their actual need. Review code for unnecessary lifetime extensions and ensure borrows are scoped as tightly as possible for performance and safety.

Code review for anti-patterns focuses on ownership efficiency, error handling consistency, and type system idioms. Check for missed inlining opportunities in tiny functions, improper use of collections, and security gaps like unvalidated external input or unchecked arithmetic.

Production Rust typically uses `serde` for serialization, `tokio` for async runtime, `axum` for web frameworks, `clap` for CLI argument parsing, and `reqwest` for HTTP clients. Apply builder patterns, newtype patterns, and prefer `&str` and `&[T]` over owned types where possible.

Run `cargo-audit` to scan dependencies for known vulnerabilities and validate all external input before use. Enable checked arithmetic in debug builds and consider overflow checks in performance-sensitive code to catch numeric bugs early.

Use enums over boolean flags when state has more than two meaningful outcomes or when the intent is clearer with named variants. Enums prevent invalid state combinations and make function signatures self-documenting, improving maintainability and reducing logic errors.