Radar · Rust · Archive · Week 15 · Apr 6 – 12, 2026
docs.rs: building fewer targets by default
Nice to knowtooling
- What changed
- docs.rs now builds fewer targets by default.
- Production impact
- The source does not say.
- Try it
- Visit a crate’s docs.rs page and check the build log to see which targets are being built.
- Source
- blog.rust-lang.org/2026/04/04/docsrs-only-default-targets/
Understand it, then run it
Docs.rs is a service that builds and hosts Rust documentation. Before May 2026 it would automatically build docs for five different target platforms when you didn’t specify any. Starting May 1 2026 it will only build docs for one target – the default target – unless you explicitly list more. The default target is the one used by docs.rs’ build servers, which is x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu. You can change that default or add more targets by editing the Cargo.toml file of your crate.
Run it now
// This program demonstrates the current default behaviour of docs.rs.
// It prints the default target that docs.rs would use when building
// documentation for a crate that does not specify any targets.
//
// In a real Cargo.toml you would set this under
// [package.metadata.docs.rs] as shown in the change description.
fn main() {
// The default target used by docs.rs build servers.
let default_target = "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu";
println!("Docs.rs default target: {}", default_target);
}
What it printed when we ran it on Rust 1.98.1 (edition 2024)
Docs.rs default target: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
Run sends this program (for Solidity, the contract and its tests) to our own sandbox, where it is compiled and run once, with no network, and what it printed or the test report comes back here. Nothing is kept. Runs are counted per visitor for the day so everyone gets a turn; the details are on the legal page.
Written by gpt-oss-20b from the linked source · claims checked against the sources · archive, not individually reviewed