Git 3.0 set for April 2027 with SHA-256, reftable, and Rust as defaults

Sources: primary, discussion
Summary: LWN reported on 2026-09-18, with an update from Kernel Recipes where Patrick Steinhardt described the agreed plan, that the December 2026 release is named 2.98 as a signal, 2.99 follows in April 2027 as a long-term-support release, and Git 3.0 ships at the same time as the base for all subsequent releases. Git 3.0 carries three compatibility breaks: SHA-256 becomes the default object hash instead of SHA-1, reftable becomes the default ref storage, which matters at Android-scale repositories holding over 800,000 refs, and Rust becomes mandatory to build Git. Repositories on SHA-1 without reftables stay fully supported, and libgit2 already has reftable support and enabled SHA-256 by default in August.
Why it matters: Platforms without a working Rust compiler cannot upgrade past 2.99, and GitHub has announced no SHA-256 support, so the default hash change currently lands without a confirmed path for the largest hosting platform.
Follow-up: Whether GitHub announces SHA-256 support before April 2027.