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gdext is a library to bind the Rust language to Godot 4.
Godot is an open-source game engine, whose version 4 has brought large-scale improvements.
Its GDExtension API allows integrating third-party languages and libraries.
If you are looking for a Rust binding for Godot 3 (GDNative API), check out gdnative.
The Rust binding is an alternative to GDScript, with a focus on type safety, scalability and performance.
The primary goal of gdext is to provide a pragmatic Rust API for game developers.
Recurring workflows should be simple and require minimal boilerplate. APIs are designed to be safe and idiomatic Rust wherever possible. Due to interacting with Godot as a C++ engine, we sometimes follow unconventional approaches to provide a good user experience.
The gdext library has evolved a lot during 2023 and 2024 and is now in a usable state for smaller projects. However, there are still certain things to keep in mind.
Warning
The public API introduces breaking changes from time to time. Most of these are motivated by new features and improved ergonomics for existing ones. See also API stability in the book.
Features: While most Godot features are available, some less commonly used ones are missing. See #24 for an up-to-date overview. At this point, there is no support for Android or iOS, and WASM is experimental. Contributions are very welcome!
Bugs: Most undefined behavior related to the FFI layer has been ironed out, but there may still be occasional safety issues. Apart from that, new additions to the library are typically not feature-complete from the start, but become more robust with feedback and testing over time. To counter bugs, we have an elaborate CI suite including clippy, unit tests, engine integration tests and memory sanitizers. Even hot-reload is tested!
To dive into Rust development with gdext, check out the godot-rust book. The book is still under construction, but already covers a Hello World setup as well as several more in-depth chapters.
To consult the API reference, have a look at the online API Docs.
Furthermore, we provide a small example game in the examples/dodge-the-creeps directory.
The example examples/hot-reload demonstrates hot-reloading in the Godot editor.
If you need help, join our Discord server and ask in the #help-gdext channel!
We use the Mozilla Public License 2.0. MPL tries to find a balance between permissive (MIT, Apache, Zlib) and copyleft licenses (GPL, LGPL).
The license provides a lot of freedom: you can use the library commercially and keep your own code closed-source, i.e. game development is not restricted. The main condition is that if you change gdext itself, you need to make those changes available (and only those, no surrounding code).
Contributions are very welcome! If you want to help out, see Contributing.md for some pointers on getting started.