RUST Web Tools Beginner

Minimal Site Monitor in Rust

Create a small asynchronous application in just a few steps that monitors a website.

Free · 1h 10m · 5 ch
Practice →
Minimal Site Monitor in Rust cover

What you'll build

We'll build a practical site-monitoring CLI tool step by step. Starting from an empty Cargo project, we add an HTTP client, migrate to async with Tokio, introduce a polling loop with latency tracking, add resilient error handling, and finish with user-configurable command-line arguments via clap.

Along the way we cover core Rust concepts — crates, async/await, the Result type, pattern matching, and derive macros — in the context of a tool you can actually use.

Learning objectives

Make HTTP requests with reqwest
Understand blocking vs async I/O in Rust
Use the Tokio runtime for async execution
Implement a periodic polling loop with timing
Handle errors gracefully with Result and match
Parse command-line arguments with clap derive

Prerequisites

Basic Rust syntax (functions, variables, types)
Familiarity with Cargo and crate dependencies

Course curriculum

1 The blocking check
2 The monitor's pulse
3 Command-line arguments
4 Going async
5 Many sites in parallel

Technologies

Rust HTTP Client Async Tokio reqwest Error Handling CLI clap Site Monitor

FAQ

Is this a video course?

No. You work through the project step by step in your browser, and the reference code for each step saves to your disk — yours to run and keep locally.

Do I need to install anything?

No. The playground runs entirely in your browser — no toolchain or local setup required.

Can I try it before subscribing?

Yes. Preview steps are available without a subscription so you can see the format and quality first.

What do I get with full access?

Every step unlocked, the Workbench app, a snapshot for each step, jump-to-any-step navigation, and all new playground releases.

Does it work with an AI agent like Claude or Codex?

Yes. You can work through a playground solo or alongside an AI agent.

Is there reference code?

Yes. Every step has a complete reference solution you can compare against.