Rust

Rust is an efficient (on par with C++) system level language with a rich type system that is heavily focused on memory-safety, thread-safety and data ownership. It does not have a garbage collector, hence is well suited for embedded hardware. In practice it means that the engineer will be normally fighting the Rust compiler and its borrow checker during development to find bugs instead of using GDB at program runtime like when working with a C/C++ codebase. The CHERI forks complement the language’s own and language specific security features. While Rust provides compile-time guarantees for safe code, CHERI provides runtime guarantees for every fragment of unsafe code, as the capabilities are implemented at the hardware level.

Project Home: https://rust.cheriot.org/

Downloads & Documentation

Fork VersionBased on Upstream VersionTargetReference SpecDownloadDocumentation
2494050 (main)
2026-02-02		1.93.0
2026-01-22		CHERIoTCHERIoT ISA v1.0Source
1.72.1-20250915-dev
2025-09-15		1.72.1
2024-08-24		aarch64, aarch64cARM Morellolinux/x86 SourceRelease Notes

Fork VersionBased on Upstream VersionTargetReference SpecDownloadDocumentation
1.56.0-20240112-dev
2024-01-12		1.56.0
2021-10-21		aarch64, aarch64cARM Morellolinux/x86 SourceRelease Notes
1.56.0-20230804-dev
2023-08-04		1.56.0
2021-10-21		aarch64, aarch64cARM Morelloapple/aarch64 apple/aarch64 freebsd/aarch64c freebsd/aarch64 apple/aarch64 SourceRelease Notes
One can download artefacts for the Morello University of Kent 1.72.1 Rust project via the release section in github

Project Status

In 2023 work bringing in Rust support to the ARM Morello was done at University of Kent, funded by DSbD and published at https://github.com/kent-weak-memory/rust - its latest release is based on Rust 1.72.1, so it is a dated version at this point (as upstream is 1.93), it also requires an old build of Morello LLVM. The authors point out that the compiler is fully tested but is still experimental and one should expect bugs. The maintenance and support shall be limited on this project.

In 2025 new UK Innovate and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology funding was announced for bringing in Rust to the CHERIoT platform, work to be done by SCI Semiconductor, but in collaboration with previous project owners from the University of Kent, who are a subcontractor, so this is a followup for the previous work done in 2023. It shall add extensions specific to CHERIoT but the goal is to be compatible with any CHERI platform - so this would bring CHERI support for the RVY platform, could support the legacy Morello platform and enable Rust support for any CHERI enabled hardware in the future.

The Rust project under the banner of CHERIoT should be the only stop for CHERI Rust and its development moving forward, the project lives at https://github.com/CHERIoT-Platform/cheri-rust.

The codebase shall track the main and beta branches from upstream, so the goal is to be in sync with upstream, which is very nice, we like.

Please keep checking the project homepage for blog posts and news.

Building from Source

For instructions on building the Morello 1.72.1 Rust project see the README.md in their github repository.

For instructions on building the CHERIoT Rust project see the README.md in their github repository.

Get Involved

Development for this project happens in the following places:

Signal chat for CHERIoT for live discussions (these messages are ephemeral and will be auto-deleted)

The Rust + CHERI working group arranges a meeting every month, subscribe to their mailing list above to get updates and reminders.

Something missing, incorrect?

This page was last updated on 2nd February 2026. Please let us know of any corrections via support@thecapablehub.org, alternatively raise a GitHub pull request in our repo.