Git’s Build System Could Make Rust a Requirement

Git’s maintainer team is considering making Rust a mandatory part of its build infrastructure by version 3.0, after submitting a request for comments proposing the change.

The proposal, authored by Patrick Steinhardt, outlines a phased approach. First, Git has already introduced optional support for Rust through its foreign function interface in version 2.49. In one of the earliest experiments under this proposal, the varint. c subsystem has been rewritten in Rust as a small, standalone test case to check interoperability with the existing C codebase.

Git 3.0 will also bring with it another significant change: SHA-256 is set to become the default hash algorithm.

Supporters of the change argue that Rust offers stronger guarantees around safety—particularly memory safety—and could reduce certain classes of bugs notorious in C‐based systems. Making Rust mandatory for building Git would mean every contributor, package maintainer, and distributor must have the Rust toolchain available—something that is not yet the case universally.

Some in the community warn that mandating Rust could reduce Git’s portability. Many legacy or less common platforms lack reliable Rust compiler support. If Rust is required, those platforms might struggle or fall behind. There is also concern about the added complexity in build systems and toolchains, and how this will affect smaller contributors or environments that have traditionally depended solely on C.

The RFC stresses the transition would be gradual. Infrastructure work is underway: documentation changes, support through the Meson build system, and reorganising build‐time checks are part of the plan. Tests so far show that the rewritten varint subsystem passes existing test suites.