[RFC] Proposal to remove RISC-V 32-bit support

[Florian Loitsch]

Hi,

We propose to remove support for RISC-V 32-bit (RISCV32).

We've observed that RISCV32 is primarily used in small, embedded systems. It is rare to find Linux distributions running on this architecture; for instance, Debian only targets RISC-V 64-bit (RISCV64). Since V8 requires an operating system like Linux, and there are no known Linux-based V8 users on this architecture, we are not aware of any current users.

To reduce the maintenance burden for the RISC-V maintainers, we suggest its removal with the following timeline:
- September 2025: Announce the plan and gather feedback on this mailing list (this mail).
- November 2025: Remove RISCV32 bots from the Chromium build infrastructure. At this time, we will also add a build flag (`#ifdef`) to the code. This will break the default build for RISCV32 to signal that the port is no longer actively supported and to prompt users to contact us if they depend on it.
- May 2026: Delete the RISCV32-specific code from the V8 repository.

We will continue to maintain the RISCV32 port internally until May 2026, running it on our own builders with the necessary build flags. If any users come forward before May 2026 with a strong use case, we are open to reverting this decision.

Please let us know if you have any feedback or concerns.

Thanks.

[Hannes Payer]

Hi Florian,

The proposal looks good to me. The May 2026 deadline is long enough to alert current users.

Thanks,

Hannes

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[Jakob Kummerow]

+v8-users FYI.

On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 10:05 AM Florian Loitsch <floi...@rivosinc.com> wrote: