rust-lang/cargo · error · anyhow::Error

package ID specification

Error message

package ID specification `{}` did not match any packages{}

What it means

Thrown by cargo_clean when a package ID spec (the -p argument) matched zero package IDs in the resolved dependency graph. The error appends an edit-distance suggestion, so it fires after normal resolution succeeded but the user-supplied spec named something that is not in the graph.

Solutions

1. Apply the closest-match suggestion cargo prints after the error (it comes from edit-distance matching over resolved package names).
2. Retry with a bare name, dropping version/origin qualifiers: `cargo clean -p mycrate`.
3. Find the exact resolved name and version: `cargo metadata --format-version 1 | jq -r '.packages[] | "\(.name)@\(.version)"'`, then clean with `cargo clean -p name@resolved_version`.
4. If the spec pins a version that no longer resolves (e.g. after Cargo.toml changes), run `cargo update` or adjust the spec to the version in the lockfile.

Example fix

# before
cargo clean -p mycrate@1.0.0
# after (find resolved version)
cargo metadata --format-version 1 | jq '.packages[] | {name,version}'

// Resolve valid package specs from metadata before running cargo clean -p.
// cargo metadata --format-version 1 -> JSON; collect name@version strings.
fn known_specs(meta_json: &str) -> Vec<String> { /* parse packages[].name@version */ vec![] }

When it happens

Trigger: Running `cargo clean -p <spec>` where <spec> is a typo, names a package not in the workspace/deps, or uses an origin/version that does not match any resolved PackageId (e.g. wrong version after an update).

Common situations: Typos in package names in scripts; renaming a crate but not updating the clean command; cleaning a dependency that was removed from Cargo.toml; version mismatch after cargo update changed the resolved version.

Related errors

• package(s) ` ` not found in workspace
• artifact-dir was not locked during clean
• can't checkout from ' ': you are in the offline mode ( )
• --exclude can only be used together with --workspace
• extra arguments to ` ` can only be passed to one target…

AI-assisted analysis of rust-lang/cargo@98a09e7e7d (2026-08-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2fc80206c0d9f133. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/ops/cargo_clean.rs:266

        }
        if spec.url().is_some() {
            clean_ctx.gctx.shell().warn(&format!(
                "url qualifier in `-p {}` ignored, \
                cleaning all versions of `{}` found",
                spec_str,
                spec.name()
            ))?;
        }
        let matches: Vec<_> = resolve.iter().filter(|id| spec.matches(*id)).collect();
        if matches.is_empty() {
            let mut suggestion = String::new();
            suggestion.push_str(&edit_distance::closest_msg(
                &spec.name(),
                resolve.iter(),
                |id| id.name().as_str(),
                "package",
            ));
            anyhow::bail!(
                "package ID specification `{}` did not match any packages{}",
                spec,
                suggestion
            );
        }
        pkg_ids.extend(matches);
    }
    let packages = pkg_set.get_many(pkg_ids)?;

    clean_ctx.progress = Box::new(CleaningPackagesBar::new(clean_ctx.gctx, packages.len()));
    let mut dirs_to_clean = DirectoriesToClean::default();

    if clean_ctx.gctx.cli_unstable().build_dir_new_layout {
        for pkg in packages {
            clean_ctx.progress.on_cleaning_package(&pkg.name())?;

            // Remove intermediate artifacts
            for (_compile_kind, layout) in &layouts_with_host {

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