Embed time of compilation and other build-time information in a rust binary

Sometimes it is useful to be able to show information about the compilation of a rust crate.

For example the date and time when it was compiled.

Cargo.toml

We need to add the built crate as a build-time dependency.

examples/embed-build-time-data/Cargo.toml

[package]
name = "embed-build-time-data"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2024"

[dependencies]

[build-dependencies]
built = { version = "0.8", features = ["cargo-lock", "dependency-tree", "chrono", "git2", "semver"] }

build.rs

We need to create build.rs in the root of the crate.

examples/embed-build-time-data/build.rs

fn main() {
    built::write_built_file().expect("Failed to acquire build-time information")
}

main.rs

We can then access the data in our code during run-time.

examples/embed-build-time-data/src/main.rs

mod built_info {
    include!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/built.rs"));
}

fn main() {
    println!("TARGET                {:?}", built_info::TARGET);
    println!("PKG_VERSION           {:?}", built_info::PKG_VERSION);
    println!("RUSTC_VERSION         {:?}", built_info::RUSTC_VERSION);

    println!("GIT_VERSION           {:?}", built_info::GIT_VERSION);
    println!("GIT_DIRTY             {:?}", built_info::GIT_DIRTY);
    println!("GIT_COMMIT_HASH       {:?}", built_info::GIT_COMMIT_HASH);
    println!(
        "GIT_COMMIT_HASH_SHORT {:?}",
        built_info::GIT_COMMIT_HASH_SHORT
    );

    println!("BUILT_TIME_UTC        {:?}", built_info::BUILT_TIME_UTC);

    println!("CI_PLATFORM           {:?}", built_info::CI_PLATFORM);
}

Output

$cargo run

TARGET                "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"
PKG_VERSION           "0.1.0"
RUSTC_VERSION         "rustc 1.93.0 (254b59607 2026-01-19)"
GIT_VERSION           Some("9c6447a")
GIT_DIRTY             Some(true)
GIT_COMMIT_HASH       Some("9c6447a01046142ccf471a597f21d2c08c67c2cd")
GIT_COMMIT_HASH_SHORT Some("9c6447a")
BUILT_TIME_UTC        "Fri, 6 Feb 2026 10:42:50 +0000"
CI_PLATFORM           None