CLI: make it possible to opt-out from cargo-metadata

[akhramov]

As of now, if the feature cli is enabled on uniffi crate, it starts to depend on cargo-metadata unconditionally and there's no way to opt-out, because cargo-metadata is featched by the default feature of uniffi-bindgen.

This change makes it possible to build the uniffi-bindgen binary without depending on cargo metadata, like this

cargo build --no-default-features --bin uniffi-bindgen

[mhammond]

I've only had a quick look and then I'll be out for a few days, but I'd have thought this patch would mean that cargo build --bin uniffi-bindgen would avoid the default feature (ie, not need --no-default-features), but that if you did want cargo_metadata enabled you'd need to specify something to explicitly enable it.

ie, are you sure this isn't going to change behaviour for existing users who want that feature by default?

[akhramov]

The default behavior should not change, here is why So `uniffi` still has the default feature, which in turn both brings the cargo-metadata dependency, and enables the corresponding feature in `uniffi_bindhen` ``` default = ["cargo-metadata"] # … cargo-metadata = ["dep:cargo_metadata", "uniffi_bindgen?/cargo-metadata"] ```

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-------- Original Message --------

On Friday, 11/28/25 at 18:01 Mark Hammond ***@***.***> wrote: mhammond left a comment [(mozilla/uniffi-rs#2746)](#2746 (comment)) I've only had a quick look and then I'll be out for a few days, but I'd have thought this patch would mean that cargo build --bin uniffi-bindgen would avoid the default feature (ie, not need --no-default-features), but that if you did want cargo_metadata enabled you'd need to specify something to explicitly enable it. ie, are you sure this isn't going to change behaviour for existing users who want that feature by default? — Reply to this email directly, [view it on GitHub](#2746 (comment)), or [unsubscribe](https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABILNZB5ITEY7RTL7A2QCT337B5XLAVCNFSM6AAAAACNPJOJGKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTKOBZHE2DSMBRHA). You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>