rust-lang/reference

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The Rust Reference

Is rust-lang/reference beginner-friendly?

In the last 30 days, rust-lang/reference merged 2 of 15 pull requests from outside contributors, and its maintainers usually reply within 1 day. 20 beginner-friendly issues are open now.

Stars
1.6k
Forks
618
Open beginner issues
20
Indexed issues
318
Avg merge
5h 48m
Merged PRs (30d)
3
Dominant language
Rust
License
Apache-2.0
Last GitHub push
Nov 4, 2026
Latest indexed
Sep 21, 2026
Contributing guide
No code of conduct
Beginner labels
help wanted

How to contribute to rust-lang/reference

  1. Read the contributing guide first: it says how the maintainers want changes proposed, tested and reviewed.
  2. Your contributions will be published under the project's Apache-2.0 license.
  3. Pick one of the 20 open beginner-friendly issues below and comment that you want to work on it before you start.
Beginner friendly Everything
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Issues somebody may already be working on are listed last. List everything by date

  • Undocumented if-let behavior with or-patterns
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 70/100

    rust-lang/reference#2405 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • The reference does not allow in-bounds reads of "partially dangling" pointers, whereas Miri does.
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 45/100

    rust-lang/reference#2356 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Consider a normative references chapter
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2316 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document how tokens are compared in declarative macros
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 68/100

    rust-lang/reference#2315 · 2 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Can we avoid the need for the hard cut operator?
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2301 · 3 comments · 1 reaction ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Reference recommends union pattern matching pattern that is not actually guaranteed to work
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 48/100

    rust-lang/reference#2298 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document the rules for const UB
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-const-eval A-undefined-behavior

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 68/100

    rust-lang/reference#2294 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Assignee expressions can be enums
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 76/100

    rust-lang/reference#2280 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document association of generic arguments in path segments
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-generics

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 55/100

    rust-lang/reference#2275 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • "Macros by example" page mixes language and macro_rules input syntax definitions
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 68/100

    rust-lang/reference#2267 · 2 comments · 1 reaction ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Confusing use of the term "undefined behavior" in the note of `type.str.value`
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 72/100

    rust-lang/reference#2266 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • The definition of fragment specifier is inconsistent
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-macros

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 45/100

    rust-lang/reference#2265 · 12 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • document difference between T:: and <T>:: in paths
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 58/100

    rust-lang/reference#2256 · 3 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Assignee expressions can contain rest-patterns.
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2208 · 6 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document macro_use shadow restriction
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-macros

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 42/100

    rust-lang/reference#2207 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Consider documenting the split extern prelude
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-resolve

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 62/100

    rust-lang/reference#2188 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Is it guaranteed that `align_of::<uX>() == align_of::<iX>()`?
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 45/100

    rust-lang/reference#2155 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • What are the divergence rules around const eval?
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-const-eval A-divergence

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 32/100

    rust-lang/reference#2153 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Update coercion and as-casting rules
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-coercions A-type-casting

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2150 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Split up inline assembly page
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-asm

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 45/100

    rust-lang/reference#2143 · 9 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Oddity with closures that "mention" uninitialized places
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-closures

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2140 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Imprecise language about function "access"
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-visibility

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 45/100

    rust-lang/reference#2135 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • UB inconsistency when derefing a place in a closure
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    I-lang-nominated I-lang-radar P-lang-drag-3

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 30/100

    rust-lang/reference#2121 · 11 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • expr.array.index.const example code is outdated
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-expressions Language Cleanup

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 50/100

    rust-lang/reference#2119 · 2 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Least-Upper-Bound coercions don't document special behaviour of coercing to fnptrs
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-coercions

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 65/100

    rust-lang/reference#2094 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Compound assignment desugaring doesn't take into account autoderef
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 45/100

    rust-lang/reference#2085 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Lack of precedence in OR clause causes lexical ambiguity for comments
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-lexer

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2079 · 4 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Elaborate on relative precedence between method calls and field accesses
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 48/100

    rust-lang/reference#2078 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document `#![feature(..)]` attribute?
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-attributes C-bug

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 52/100

    rust-lang/reference#2076 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Documenting satisfying trait bounds and candidate preference
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 25/100

    rust-lang/reference#2070 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • asm.rules.stack-below-sp is ambiguous
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 25/100

    rust-lang/reference#2053 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Add style entry for referring to editions
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    Authoring guide Meta

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 45/100

    rust-lang/reference#2046 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • English style guide
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    Authoring guide Meta

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2045 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • More clearly document normative vs non-normative content
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-conventions Authoring guide

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2044 · 1 reaction ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Expand guidelines for examples
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    Authoring guide Meta

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#2023 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • [undefined.validity.undef] paragraph contradicts miri and UCG?
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-undefined-behavior

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 38/100

    rust-lang/reference#2009 · 1 comment ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Clarify wording of orphan rule to avoid ambiguity
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 1/5 Under an hour Newbie friendliness 58/100

    rust-lang/reference#1998 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Semantics of 'static lifetime are not explained
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-lifetimes

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 42/100

    rust-lang/reference#1994 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document token spacing
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-grammar A-lexer

    Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 28/100

    rust-lang/reference#1983 · 1 reaction ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Write an introduction to the lexer chapter
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-lexer

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 62/100

    rust-lang/reference#1982 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Inline assembly lifetime extension / statement
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-asm

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 38/100

    rust-lang/reference#1976 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Grammar "with the exception of"s are ambiguous
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-grammar Formatting

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 55/100

    rust-lang/reference#1973 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • What the function types are is vague
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-functions

    Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#1971 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Are function pointers never dangling?
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 1/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 62/100

    rust-lang/reference#1967 · 3 comments ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • unique-immutable-borrows is a misnomer and no longer exists in rustc
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-closures

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 35/100

    rust-lang/reference#1959 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document `repr(uN)` enum representation more concretely than just size and alignment
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    A-type-layout

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 38/100

    rust-lang/reference#1947 · 2 reactions ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Language in `Scope of function parameters` vs. `Drop scopes` could be improved
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 55/100

    rust-lang/reference#1945 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • support collapsing rule identifiers even on large screens
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    Formatting

    Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 42/100

    rust-lang/reference#1943 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document when associated types may be omitted from dyn Trait type
    Open
    • Is something wrong?

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 68/100

    rust-lang/reference#1933 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

  • Document when items can be omitted from trait impls
    Open
    • Is something wrong?
    C-bug

    Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 48/100

    rust-lang/reference#1932 ·

    Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

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