Crates / nu-protocol
Rust crate · real downloads · data Oct 27, 2026
nu-protocol downloads, and should you depend on it?
Nushell's internal protocols, including its abstract syntax tree crates.io · docs.rs · repository
Established and losing ground.
nu-protocol: 170 crates depend on it; downloads don't spike on releases.
How this verdict is decided (4 rules)
- Usage: crates.io reverse dependencies (crates that list it as a dependency): 10,000+ = foundational, 1,000+ = widely used, 100+ = established, under 100 = few direct dependents.
- Direction: the median quiet day in the last 30 days of the window against the first 30, read against the median tracked crate (the whole field moved +39% from late summer to October, so a raw trend says nothing). 10%+ ahead of the field = gaining; 10%+ behind = losing ground; otherwise steady. Steady with no release in 2+ years = quiet for years.
- Release spikes: the median release-window day against the quiet-day baseline: under 1.15x = no spike, 1.15x to 1.3x = small bumps, 1.3x or more = jumps on release days.
- Release recency: days since the newest version that was not yanked, from crates.io publish times.
release window (release day + next day)quiet dayquiet-day median · download the 89 days as CSV
The numbers in one paragraphnu-protocol got 272,946 crates.io downloads from Jul 30, 2026 to Oct 26, 2026. 7% of them landed within 2 days of one of its 4 releases. On the other 81 quiet days it got a median of 2,954 a day, about 20,678 a week. Capping release days at that baseline leaves 271,418 release-adjusted downloads for the window.
What this means if you're choosing a dependency
- Used, not everywhere. 170 crates depend on it. Look at how fast its issues get answered before you lean on it.
- Actively released. 0.116.1 shipped 23 days ago (Oct 4, 2026).
- Still pre-1.0 (0.116.1). Under Cargo's semver rules a 0.x minor bump may break you, so pin the minor version (
nu-protocol = "0.116") and read the changelog on upgrades. - Fit check: license MIT, edition 2024, needs Rust 1.96.1 or newer (from the latest version's manifest).
- Compare it by the baseline, not the raw count. 7% of its 272,946 downloads in the window landed within 2 days of a release; the steady number is 2,954 a day.
What the chart says
- Weekend quiet days ran at 67% of weekday quiet days (2,094 vs 3,131). A dip that deep is the signature of work-week CI pipelines and developers building on weekdays.
- Biggest day: 6,735 on Sep 15, 2026, a quiet day with no release nearby.
Every number
| All-time downloads | 1,391,779 (outside the crates.io top 1,000 by all-time downloads) |
| Downloads in the window | 272,946 (Jul 30, 2026 to Oct 26, 2026, 89 days) |
| Within 2 days of a release | 19,607 (7.2%) |
| Quiet-day median (baseline) | 2,954 a day; weekdays 3,131, weekends 2,094 |
| Release-adjusted downloads | 271,418 (release-window days capped at the baseline) |
| Baseline rank | #1231 of the 1329 crates we track |
| Quiet-day trend | -31% raw, -50% against the median tracked crate (+39%) |
| Releases in the window | 4 |
| Versions published, ever | 124 |
| Latest version | 0.116.1, published Oct 4, 2026 (license MIT, edition 2024, MSRV 1.96.1) |
| First published | Dec 17, 2019 |
| Reverse dependencies | 170 |
Releases in the window
Each one opens a 2-day release window on the chart.
| Version | Published | Downloads that version got (lifetime) |
|---|---|---|
| 0.116.1 | Oct 4, 2026 | 5,412 |
| 0.116.0 | Sep 26, 2026 | 2,110 |
| 0.115.1 | Aug 23, 2026 | 7,565 |
| 0.115.0 | Aug 15, 2026 | 2,830 |
How we compute this
crates.io counts every download, including CI runners, mirrors and bots that fetch each new version, so raw counts run high (why, in The Manual). We split the last 89 days into release windows (the day a version of nu-protocol was published, plus the next day) and quiet days, and use the median quiet day as the baseline: an upper bound on steady use, never a head count. The method and data come from our study of 90 days of crates.io data from 69 crates, featured in This Week in Rust #674; check any crate live with the real-downloads checker.
Badge for your README
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Publishing a crate of your own? How to publish a Rust crate to crates.io, step by step.
Categories
Sources
- Daily downloads: crates.io API, /crates/nu-protocol/downloads (last 90 days, all versions), fetched Oct 27, 2026.
- Versions and publish times: crates.io API, /crates/nu-protocol/versions, same fetch.
- Reverse dependencies: crates.io reverse dependencies, same fetch. Dependency edges between tracked crates: each crate's default version, crates.io API.
- Fetched politely (one request every 2 seconds, identified User-Agent) per the crates.io data access policy. Data is crates.io's; the release-window split, baseline and verdict rules are ours, CC BY 4.0.
Up next
Next by real downloads: The next crate down the real-downloads ranking: 2,905 a day. Few direct dependents and losing ground.segmentRust crate. Segment analytics client for Rust. Forked for Meilisearch: https://github.com/meilisearch. Real use: 2.9K downloads a day on quiet days; 0 crates depend on...Read it next →Also worth your time
Art: Nicholas Roerich, Nag Lake (1925). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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