Rust Engineering Guide

Patterns for building reliable Rust systems that handle file-backed data, external process integration, and cross-language boundaries.

Core Philosophy

Conservative by Default

Inputs from files, subprocesses, and external systems are potentially untrusted (corrupt, half-written, out of date). Rust code should be:

• Conservative: Prefer false negatives over false positives
• Deterministic: Same input → same output
• Resilient: Never panic on user machines due to bad input

Canonical Model Ownership

If Rust is the source of truth, treat the Rust model as canonical. Everything else adapts to it: