Draft release notes for 1.96.0

[BoxyUwU]

NOTE: Use the 📝 links to edit those that have a relnotes-tracking-issue,
and they will be updated when we regenerate the notes periodically (manually).

---

Version 1.96.0 (2026-05-28)

Language

• Allow passing expr metavariable to cfg
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• Always coerce never types in tuple expressions
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• Avoid incorrect inference guidance of function arguments in rare cases
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• Support s390x vector registers in inline assembly
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• Allow using constants of type ManuallyDrop as patterns (fixing a regression introduced in 1.94.0)
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Compiler

• Enable link relaxation feature for LoongArch Linux targets
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• Update riscv64gc-unknown-fuchsia baseline to RVA22 + vector
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Libraries

• Support iterating over ranges of NonZero integers
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• refactor 'valid for read/write' definition: exclude null; add that as an exception on individual methods instead
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• Fix SGX delayed host lookup via ToSocketAddr
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Stabilized APIs

• assert_matches!
• debug_assert_matches!
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• From<T> for AssertUnwindSafe<T>
• From<T> for LazyCell<T, F>
• From<T> for LazyLock<T, F>
• 📝
• core::range::RangeToInclusive
• core::range::RangeToInclusiveIter
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• core::range::RangeFrom
• core::range::RangeFromIter
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• core::range::Range
• [core::range::RangeIter](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/range/struct.RangeIter.html
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These previously stable APIs are now stable in const contexts:

Cargo

• feat(help): display manpage for nested commands
• feat: add frame-pointers profile option
• feat(manifest): allow git dependency alongside alternate registry

Rustdoc

• Deprecation notes are now rendered like any other documentation. Previously they used the css white-space: pre-wrap; property and stripped any <p> elements from the rendered html, however this caused issues and unintuitive behavior. The new behavior should be more predictable, however some multi-line deprecation notes will now be rendered as as single lines. If this is undesirable, you can use the standard markdown method of forcing a linebreak, which is " \n" (two spaces followed by a newline).
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• Don't emit rustdoc missing_doc_code_examples lint on impl items
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• Seperate methods and associated functions in sidebar
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Compatibility Notes

• Inhibit all-absent-variant optimization for repr(iX) and repr(uX) enums
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• Prevent unsize-coercing into Pin<Foo> where Foo doesn't implement Deref. Some such coercions were previously allowed, but produce a type with no useful public API.
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• rustc: Stop passing --allow-undefined on wasm targets
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• Gate the accidentally stabilized #![reexport_test_harness_main] attribute
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• Error on return-position-impl-trait-in-traits whose types are too private
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• Report the uninhabited_static lint in dependencies and make it deny-by-default
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• Distributed builds now contain non-split debuginfo for windows-gnu
  This appears to improve the quality of backtraces. This change has no effect on the defaults for the output of rustc/cargo on these targets.
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• Check const generic arguments are correctly typed in more positions
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• Remove -Csoft-float
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  -Importing structs with ::{self [as name]}, e.g., struct S {}; use S::{self as Other};, is now no longer permitted because {self} imports require a module parent.
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• For export_name, link_name, and link_section attributes, if multiple of the same attribute is present, the first one now takes precedence.
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• Update the minimum external LLVM to 21
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• On avr targets, C's double type is 32-bit by default, so change c_double to f32 on avr targets to match. This is a breaking change, but necessary to make c_double match C's double.
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Internal Changes

These changes do not affect any public interfaces of Rust, but they represent
significant improvements to the performance or internals of rustc and related
tools.

• JSON targets: aarch64 softfloat targets now have to have rustc_abi set to "softfloat"
  📝
• target specs: stricter checks for LLVM ABI values, and correlate that with cfg(target_abi)
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[BoxyUwU]

@rustbot ping relnotes-interest-group

cc @rust-lang/release

[rustbot]

Hi relnotes-interest-group, this issue/PR could use some help in reviewing /
adjusting release notes. Could you take a look if available? Thanks <3

cc @alex-semenyuk @jieyouxu @joshtriplett @lcnr @traviscross