How to Create Man Pages for Rust CLI Applications

Use the mdbook-man crate to generate man pages from your Rust CLI's clap or argh configuration. Add the dependency to your Cargo.toml, then run the build command to output the man page file.

[dependencies]
mdbook-man = "0.1"

cargo run --bin your-cli -- --man-page

Alternatively, if using clap, enable the derive feature and run:

cargo install mdbook-man
cargo run --bin your-cli -- --help | mdbook-man > your-cli.1

Man pages are the standard help files for command-line tools on Unix systems. Creating them for your Rust app means users can type man your-app to see how it works, just like they do for system tools. It's like adding a built-in instruction manual that appears automatically when someone asks for help.