Rust Panic.instructions

---
description: Microsoft Rust guidelines for panic behavior — panics mean immediate program termination, detected programming bugs panic rather than return errors. Enforced on all Rust source files.
applyTo: "**/*.rs"
---

# Rust Panic Guidelines (Microsoft Pragmatic Rust)

## Panic Means 'Stop the Program' (M-PANIC-IS-STOP)

Panics are not exceptions. Instead, they suggest immediate program termination.

Although your code must be
[panic-safe](https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/exception-safety.html) (i.e., a
survived panic may not lead to inconsistent state), invoking a panic means _this
program should stop now_. It is not valid to:

- use panics to communicate (errors) upstream,
- use panics to handle self-inflicted error conditions,
- assume panics will be caught, even by your own code.

For example, if the application calling you is compiled with a `Cargo.toml`
containing