cargo facade occasionally not working in Github Actions CI

[Skgland]

Verification

• I searched for recent similar issues at https://github.com/rust-lang/rustup/issues?q=is%3Aissue and found no duplicates.
• I am on the latest version of Rustup according to https://github.com/rust-lang/rustup/tags and am still able to reproduce my issue.

Problem

• https://github.com/mthom/scryer-prolog/actions/runs/25834366746/job/75906069402#step:21:4
  Command being run cargo clean -p `cargo metadata --no-deps --offline --format-version 1 | jq -r '[.workspace_members[]|split(" ")|.[0]]|join(" ")'`

  error: error: unexpected argument 'metadata' found
  
  Usage: rustup-init[EXE] [OPTIONS]
  
  For more information, try '--help'.
  
  error: error: unexpected argument 'clean' found
  
  Usage: rustup-init[EXE] [OPTIONS]
  
  For more information, try '--help'.
  

• https://github.com/rustsec/rustsec/actions/runs/25825924430/job/75878929721#step:5:10
  Command being run cargo test --no-default-features

  error: error: unexpected argument 'test' found
  
  Usage: rustup-init[EXE] [OPTIONS]
  
  For more information, try '--help'.
  

Steps

I haven't been able to reliably reproduce this.

Possible Solution(s)

No response

Notes

No response

Rustup version

rustup 1.29.0 (2026-03-05)
info: This is the version for the rustup toolchain manager, not the rustc compiler.
info: the currently active `rustc` version is `rustc 1.95.0 (59807616e 2026-04-14)`
Installed rustup 1.29.0 support profiles

Installed toolchains

Default host: aarch64-apple-darwin
rustup home:  /Users/runner/.rustup

installed toolchains
--------------------
stable-aarch64-apple-darwin (active, default)

active toolchain
----------------
name: stable-aarch64-apple-darwin
active because: it's the default toolchain
installed targets:
  aarch64-apple-darwin

OS version

Current runner version: '2.334.0'
Runner Image Provisioner
  Hosted Compute Agent
  Version: 20260415.520
  Commit: af089020f5f67b61ccc91db6c07980876c02bf7b
  Build Date: 2026-04-15T18:07:08Z
  Worker ID: {6fc716bb-5221-4147-acba-5606cebae1f9}
  Azure Region: westus
Operating System
  macOS
  15.7.5
  24G624
Runner Image
  Image: macos-15-arm64
  Version: 20260511.0048.1
  Included Software: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/macos-15-arm64/20260511.0048/images/macos/macos-15-arm64-Readme.md
  Image Release: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/macos-15-arm64%2F20260511.0048

[djc]

Yup, I've seen a few instances of this too. I guess this might be related to GitHub upgrading rustup to 1.29.0 in their runner images? @Skgland thanks for filing! Another case:

https://github.com/quinn-rs/quinn/actions/runs/25855217935/job/75971295176?pr=2645

All of these are on macOS -- probably not a coincidence?

[Skgland]

Both of my examples succedded in a retry

• https://github.com/mthom/scryer-prolog/actions/runs/25855934479/job/75973684841
• https://github.com/rustsec/rustsec/actions/runs/25825924430/job/75949778315.

There are a few differences between these failing and the succeeding runs

Runner Image Provisioner Version is newer 20260415.520 -> 20260422.526
macOS Version is older 15.7.5 -> 15.7.4
Runner Image is older 20260511.0048.1 -> 20260427.0018.1

But rustup is 1.29.0 in all runs that output the rustup version.

Details

Current runner version: '2.334.0'
Runner Image Provisioner
  Hosted Compute Agent
  Version: 20260422.526
  Commit: e1a9e573f4d0838b3a7c1b07401aeb29ed3635a9
  Build Date: 2026-04-22T09:31:31Z
  Worker ID: {01cf8365-2ed9-4950-999e-5e711b97c8c4}
  Azure Region: westus
Operating System
  macOS
  15.7.4
  24G517
Runner Image
  Image: macos-15-arm64
  Version: 20260427.0018.1
  Included Software: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/macos-15-arm64/20260427.0018/images/macos/macos-15-arm64-Readme.md
  Image Release: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/macos-15-arm64%2F20260427.0018

[Skgland]

I think this is actions/runner-images#14097

[montyc1999]

If you are using rust-cache, try adding cache-bin: 'false' as a workaround: Swatinem/rust-cache#341