Rust 1.52: What's New, Release History & Support Lifecycle

What Is New in Rust 1.52

Why does `cargo clippy` now run correctly after `cargo check`?

In Rust 1.52 Cargo's incremental cache treats `cargo check` and `cargo clippy` as separate build steps, so Clippy is executed even if a prior `cargo check` populated the cache.

• Before 1.52 the cache key was shared, causing `cargo clippy` to be a no-op after `cargo check`.
• Now the two commands produce distinct artifacts, guaranteeing that linting runs on the latest code.

# Typical workflow with the fix
cargo check
cargo clippy -- -D warnings

In practice this means teams can keep their existing CI steps (`cargo check && cargo clippy`) without worrying about missed lint runs.

What const APIs were stabilized in Rust 1.52?

Rust 1.52 promotes several library methods to `const`, allowing them to be called in constant evaluation.

• Methods on primitive types such as `u32::from_be_bytes` are now const.
• Iterator adapters like `Iterator::next` remain non-const, but many slice utilities have become const.

const fn make_u32(bytes: [u8; 4]) -> u32 {
    u32::from_be_bytes(bytes)
}

This matters if you build compile-time tables or embed static data that previously required a runtime conversion.

What other notable changes arrived with Rust 1.52?

Beyond the Clippy cache fix and const API stabilizations, Rust 1.52 includes a handful of incremental improvements across the ecosystem.

• Minor performance tweaks in the borrow checker that reduce compile time for large crates.
• Updates to Cargo's resolver that improve handling of optional dependencies.
• Clippy received new lints and documentation enhancements.

Most teams will see a smoother developer experience with no breaking changes required during upgrade.