All organizations · GSoC 2026 · Programming languages, Web

Boa

An ECMAScript engine written in Rust

Boa is an open-source, embeddable JavaScript engine written in Rust. The project aims to provide a correct, safe, and performant implementation of the ECMAScript specification, with a strong focus on long-term maintainability and developer ergonomics. Boa is designed to be used as a library, enabling developers to embed JavaScript into Rust applications, tooling, and experimental runtimes. The project emphasizes clear internal architecture, rigorous testing, and close alignment with the evolving ECMAScript standard. Development is community-driven and spans multiple areas of language runtime engineering, including parsing, bytecode compilation, virtual machine execution, garbage collection, performance optimization, and specification conformance. Boa is actively developed and used as a platform for exploring modern JavaScript engine design in a memory-safe systems programming language. In 2026 Boa's work has been used in browsers such as Google Chrome and Node.js to implement Temporal, you can read more about this in https://boajs.dev/blog/2025/09/24/temporal-release. Boa has also been used as an implementation to help drive standards within TC39 (the standards committee behind …

  • javascript
  • rust
  • compilers
  • web
  • performance
  • interpreters

Project ideas

5 ideas on its 2026 ideas page; of the 5 that state a difficulty: 3 medium, 2 hard. Sizes: 4 medium, 1 large.

  1. Garbage Collector Redesign and Integration large hard
  2. Public API Audit and 1.0 Stabilization medium medium
  3. JavaScript Engine Performance Improvements medium hard
  4. ECMAScript Conformance and Spec Compliance medium medium
  5. Developer Tooling and Engine Observability medium medium

Read the ideas page. Ideas are for scope reference; never copy one into a proposal.

History

In GSoC since 2026, 1 year. Projects per year: '26: 2.

On GitHub

6 repositories pushed to in the last year. Main languages: Rust (4), JavaScript (1), TypeScript (1).

Links and channels

go deeper in your terminal
git-into-gsoc org "Boa" --shortlist
git-into-gsoc repos "Boa"
git-into-gsoc issues --org "Boa"
or ask your assistant:
"Which Boa repositories merge
newcomers' pull requests, and which beginner
issues are still free?"

Those commands read live data: which repositories merge outside pull requests, and which beginner issues nobody has claimed. Install in two minutes.