# briansmith/ring

An experiment.

Repository: https://github.com/briansmith/ring
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ring
Language: Assembly
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: rust, cryptography, security
Last push: 2026-07-23T18:48:09+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 75/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 94, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4060, "days_push": 41, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4104, forks 799 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:35.611592+00:00)

## What it is
ring is a Rust library providing safe, fast cryptographic primitives (hashing, AEAD, signatures, key agreement) built largely on BoringSSL's C and assembly code. The author explicitly describes it as an experiment and discourages general-purpose dependence.

## Use cases
- encrypt and decrypt data with AES-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305 in Rust
- generate and verify Ed25519 or RSA signatures
- compute SHA-256 digests and HMACs
- perform ECDH key agreement for TLS-like protocols
- generate cryptographically secure random values

## When to choose
- you need a Rust crypto library with a misuse-resistant API and BoringSSL-derived primitives
- you are already using Rust TLS stacks like rustls that depend on it
- you want constant-time, assembly-optimized crypto on common platforms

## When to avoid
- you need a formally supported, general-purpose crypto library with long-term stability guarantees
- you need a broad feature set like certificates, TLS protocol handling, or X.509 parsing
- you require side-channel guarantees beyond what the project documents in SIDE-CHANNELS.md

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: cryptography, security
- domain: security, developer-tools
- platform: rust, cross-platform
- tags: crypto-primitives, boringssl-derived, tls-crypto, safe-api

## Member repositories
- briansmith/ring (main) score 75

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:35.611592+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 2026-08-29T18:23:15.196471+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/briansmith/ring (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:35.611592+00:00, sha e006fc2ae791)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.