Rust in 2026
Flagship themes are long-running efforts that span multiple goal periods. Each theme represents a vision for where Rust is headed, with concrete milestones for this year.
- Beyond the
&: Smart pointers that feel as natural as&and&mut. Key 2026 milestones include:- experimental support for field projections,
- progress on reborrow traits,
- design alignment on in-place initialization.
- Unblocking dormant traits: Lending iterators, extern types, scalable vectors, and evolvable trait hierarchies. Key 2026 milestones include:
- stabilize the next-generation trait solver,
- stabilize the Sized hierarchy.
- Constify all the things: Structs and associated constants in generics, compile-time type introspection. Key 2026 milestones include:
- stabilize const generics extensions,
- prototype reflection.
- Higher-level Rust: Single-file scripts with dependencies, ergonomic ref-counting. Key 2026 milestones include:
- stabilize cargo-script,
- prototype the Share trait.
- Secure your supply chain: Control over public API dependencies, breaking change detection, SBOM generation. Key 2026 milestones include:
- stabilize public/private dependencies,
- stabilize SBOM support.
- Building blocks: Rebuild std with custom flags, integrate Cargo into larger build systems, better test tooling. Key 2026 milestones include:
- design work on build-std,
- prototype cargo plumbing commands.