Dependencies

wgpu's dependency tree is large because it touches every modern graphics API and every shader language. The root Cargo.toml's [workspace.dependencies] table pins every external crate; per-crate Cargo.tomls opt into them via workspace = true.

This page is a tour of what's in the tree and why.

Internal workspace dependencies

Crate	Version
wgpu	29.0.0
wgpu-core	29.0.0
wgpu-hal	29.0.0
wgpu-types	29.0.0
wgpu-macros	29.0.0
wgpu-naga-bridge	29.0.0
naga	29.0.0
deno_webgpu	0.181.0 (vendored, separate version line)

All workspace members track version = "29.0.0" via [workspace.package]. Patches in [patch.crates-io] force wgpu itself to come from the in-tree path so examples and downstream test crates always use the local code.

Graphics-API bindings

Crate	Backend	Used in
ash 0.38	Vulkan	wgpu-hal/src/vulkan/
objc2 0.6, objc2-foundation, objc2-metal, objc2-quartz-core, objc2-core-foundation	Metal	wgpu-hal/src/metal/
block2 0.6	Metal	Apple block helpers
windows 0.62, windows-core, windows-result	DX12 (and surfaces)	wgpu-hal/src/dx12/
glow 0.17	GL/GLES/WebGL2	wgpu-hal/src/gles/
khronos-egl 6	EGL	wgpu-hal/src/gles/egl.rs
glutin_wgl_sys 0.6	WGL	wgpu-hal/src/gles/wgl.rs
glutin 0.32, glutin-winit 0.5	Examples only	examples/features/src/framework.rs
raw-window-metal 1.0	macOS surface integration	wgpu-hal/src/metal/surface.rs
raw-window-handle 0.6.2	Cross-platform window handles	All surface code

Memory and resource allocation

• gpu-allocator 0.28 — Vulkan + DX12 memory.
• range-alloc 0.1 — DX12 descriptor heap suballocation.
• mach-dxcompiler-rs 0.1.4 — static DXC linkage.

Shader translation (naga)

• bit-set, bit-vec — bitset utilities for arena indices.
• hashbrown 0.17, indexmap 2 — hash containers.
• petgraph 0.8 — call graph analysis.
• rustc-hash 1.1 — FxHasher. The repo pins to 1.x; v2 has different perf characteristics.
• pp-rs 0.2.1 — GLSL preprocessor.
• rspirv 0.13, spirv 0.4 — SPIR-V parsing/emission.
• unicode-ident — WGSL identifier classification.
• codespan-reporting 0.13 — diagnostic formatting.

WebAssembly / web

• wasm-bindgen 0.2.108
• wasm-bindgen-futures 0.4.58
• wasm-bindgen-test
• web-sys 0.3.85
• js-sys 0.3.85
• console_error_panic_hook
• console_log
• web-time 1.1

Deno (only for deno_webgpu and cts_runner)

• deno_console 0.214, deno_core 0.355, deno_features 0.11, deno_url 0.214, deno_web 0.245, deno_webidl 0.214.
• deno_unsync 0.4.4, deno_error 0.7.
• tokio 1.47, termcolor 1.4.

These pulls are heavyweight, which is why cts_runner and deno_webgpu are excluded from default-members.

General-purpose

• arrayvec 0.7 — small inline arrays.
• bitflags 2.9 — bitflag struct generation.
• bytemuck 1.22 — POD casting.
• cfg_aliases 0.2.1 — cfg helpers, used in build.rs.
• cfg-if 1 — branching on cfg conditions.
• flume 0.12 — channels.
• futures-lite 2 — small futures utilities.
• half 2.5 — f16 support.
• heck 0.5 — string casing.
• image 0.25 — for examples and image-diff helpers.
• itertools 0.14.
• libc 0.2.172.
• libloading 0.8 — dynamic loading (DXC, MoltenVK, etc.).
• libm 0.2.6 — no_std math.
• log 0.4.29.
• nanoserde 0.2 — small serde alternative for tools.
• nanorand 0.8 — small RNG for tests/examples.
• num-traits 0.2.16.
• nv-flip 0.1 — image perceptual diff for tests.
• obj 0.10 — Wavefront OBJ loading for examples.
• once_cell 1.21.
• ordered-float >=3, <6.0 — pinned wide because Firefox vendors 3.4.0.
• parking_lot 0.12.3 — locks.
• portable-atomic, portable-atomic-util — atomics on no-atomic targets.
• profiling 1.0.1 — tracing/profiling integration.
• serde 1.0.225, serde_json 1.0.143 — optional.
• smallvec 1.14.
• static_assertions 1.1.
• strum 0.28 — enum iteration.
• thiserror 2.0.12.
• tempfile 3.
• tracy-client 0.18 — Tracy profiler integration.
• walkdir 2.3, which 8 — for xtask.
• xshell 0.2.2 — shell helpers in xtask.
• argh 0.1.13 — naga-cli CLI parsing.
• pico-args 0.5 — xtask CLI parsing.

Dev/test-only

• approx 0.5 — float comparisons.
• arbitrary 1.4.2 — fuzz tests.
• bincode 2 — trace serialization.
• criterion (via benches/) — benchmarking.
• ctor 0.10 — test setup hooks.
• diff 0.1 — snapshot diffs.
• env_logger 0.11 (patched).
• exhaust 0.2 — exhaustive iteration in tests.
• fern 0.7 — alternate logger for some tests.
• glam 0.32 — math for examples.
• libtest-mimic 0.8 (patched).
• noise 0.9 — examples.
• pollster 0.4 — block-on for tests.
• regex-lite 0.1.
• ron 0.12 — older trace format.
• shell-words 1.
• toml 1.0.
• trybuild 1 — compile-fail tests.

Patches

Two [patch.crates-io] overrides:

env_logger = { ..., git = "https://github.com/rust-cli/env_logger.git", rev = "d550741" }
libtest-mimic = { ..., git = "https://github.com/cwfitzgerald/libtest-mimic.git", rev = "9979b3c" }

Both pull a hot-fix that hadn't shipped to crates.io.

wgpu itself is patched to its in-tree path:

wgpu = { path = "./wgpu" }

So examples and integration tests always pick up local changes.

Dependency tracking

• tests/tests/wgpu-dependency/ — asserts the public dependency tree against a checked-in expected output via cargo tree. Catches accidental new dependencies.
• cargo-deny (.deny.toml) — license, advisory, banned, and duplicate checks.
• dependabot and renovate[bot] — automated update PRs.

tests/tests/wgpu-dependency/ is what catches "I added a feature and now the public dependency tree changed shape on Linux but not on Windows" issues. It runs in CI on every PR.