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Ferrous created a language specification. https://github.com/ferrocene/specification

They do say any differences between it and upstream behavior or documentation is a defect in the spec, not upstream. So it isn't authoritative. Unless we all decide it is.

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They have explicitly stated that a Rust language specification is a non-goal for Ferrocene:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=thesuperbigfrog&next...

There's an ongoing discussion about potential adoption into upstream, though.

The thing here is: it would be harmful if we, Ferrous Systems, claimed or even be confused with a more general Rust spec. That's a) the privilege of the Rust project and b) problematic if consumers were to understand it that way.

Doesn't Rust have a Reference manual already? A "spec" just wouldn't be very meaningful given the lack of independent implementations. But to the extent that the reference manual doesn't suffice for documenting the language, that's a defect which could and should be fixed.

The manual isn't directly consumable by formal processes. The compiler design doesn't have to be influenced by a specification, but it does have to be described by one.

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