# rui314/mold

mold: A Modern Linker 🦠

Repository: https://github.com/rui314/mold
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/mold
Language: C++
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-26T11:09:21+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 97, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2164, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 22, "gap_med": 17, "n_releases_24m": 18}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 16839, forks 543 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:17.368131+00:00)

## What it is
mold is a high-performance drop-in replacement for traditional Unix linkers like GNU ld, gold, and LLVM lld. It dramatically reduces link times for large C, C++, and Rust programs, improving developer productivity in debug-edit-rebuild cycles.

## Use cases
- speed up linking of large C++ executables like Chromium or Clang
- reduce build times in rapid debug-edit-rebuild cycles
- replace GNU ld or lld as a faster linker
- link Rust programs faster
- cut CI build times for large native projects

## When to choose
- you link large native binaries and link time dominates your build
- you want a drop-in replacement for ld, gold, or lld with no workflow changes
- you develop on Linux or macOS with supported architectures like x86-64 or ARM64

## When to avoid
- you target platforms or object formats mold does not support (e.g., PE/COFF Windows binaries)
- you need a linker for embedded toolchains with unusual ELF quirks
- your toolchain pins a specific linker's extensions or behavior

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: build-tool, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, compilers, performance
- platform: bsd, cli, cross-platform
- tags: linker, elf, build-performance, drop-in-replacement, c-plus-plus, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- rui314/mold (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:17.368131+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:03:42.886739+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/rui314/mold (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:17.368131+00:00, sha 84af8b43852f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.