Rust Project Goals

rust-lang/rfcs#3874 has finished FCP and is due to be merged any day now. I'm working on resolving the remaining open comments on rust-lang/rfcs#3875 and then intend to nudge the reviewers to have a look and check their boxes or leave concerns.

Adam Gemmell has opened rust-lang/cargo#16675 with an early sketch of some of the core changes that build-std would require and is working with the Cargo team to address feedback and work out how to proceed with the implementation.

Update this cycle is the same as last time - rust-lang/rfcs#3874 and rust-lang/rfcs#3875 are progressing, with feedback being addressed and checkboxes checked, and we're still working out what the implementation would look like.

No major updates this cycle - we're still working through feedback on rust-lang/rfcs#3874 and rust-lang/rfcs#3875 and prototyping the implementation to be prepared.

Status update March 9, 2026

After the initial PR from the last update was merged, we shifted our focus to resolving some of the known issues. Notably, locking blocks the Cargo job queue slowly causing thread starvation if many build units are held by another Cargo instance.

We investigated adding the ability for Cargo to "suspend" a job internally while waiting for a lock, but we felt this change was a bit invasive and did not fit well with how the job queue was designed. Instead we plan to change our design to acquire all build unit locks prior to running the job queue. (see https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/16657)

At the same time, we have continued to refine the new build-dir to prepare it for a call for testing and eventual stabilization. (https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/16542, https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/16502, https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/16515, https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/16514)

Finally we decided to split .cargo-lock into 2 locks to allow cargo check and cargo build to run in parallel when artifact-dir == build-dir (and -Zfine-grain-locking is enabled)

I suspect this may be the last update on this goal, as the 2026 slate of goals is coming up. While I did not renew this goal for 2026, I do plan to continue work on this and eventually stabilize this within this year.

Key developments

• Cargo's FCP has ended

Blockers

• https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/152254

Key developments

• FCP has ended on frontmatter support, just awaiting merge (https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/148051)
• Cargo script has entered FCP (https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/16569)

Blockers

• Potential issues around edition, see https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/152254