microsoft/GSL
Some data may be outdated — see provenance labels.
Guidelines Support Library observed · 2026-09-21
Health v2 · maintenance only
87/100
- Activity 95
- Release rhythm 68
- Longevity 100
Flags: no_license
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-10-21. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 146.5
- age_days: 4081
- days_rel: 55
- days_push: 32
- n_releases_24m: 5
Adoption not part of the score
6722 stars · 772 forks observed · 2026-09-21
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
Microsoft's implementation of the Guidelines Support Library (GSL), a header-only C++14 library of types and functions recommended by the C++ Core Guidelines. It provides safety-oriented utilities such as not_null pointers, bounds-checked span views, and zstring types.
Use cases
- enforce non-null pointer guarantees in C++ code
- get bounds-checked views over contiguous memory
- adopt C++ Core Guidelines types in my project
- replace raw pointers with safer alternatives
- add span-like containers to a C++14 codebase
When to choose
- you follow the C++ Core Guidelines and want their recommended types
- you need a lightweight, header-only safety library with no dependencies
- you want bounds-checked spans on pre-C++20 compilers
When to avoid
- you only target C++20+ and can rely on std::span and std::not_null alternatives
- you need a large general-purpose utility library like Boost
- your project cannot use the Microsoft license terms
Facets
library · maturity stable
developer-tools type-system error-handling developer-tools programming-languages cpp cross-platform cpp-core-guidelines header-only span not-null bounds-safety algorithms
1 source
- readme: https://github.com/microsoft/GSL · fetched 2026-09-21 · 5184e94d60d5
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| microsoft/GSL | main | 87 |
For agents
Data as of 2026-10-19T08:05:51.212177+00:00 · Report a problem