As of today in Mesa 25.3-devel Git, the Intel “ANV” open-source Vulkan driver for Linux systems is finally exposing the VK_EXT_shader_object extension.
VK_EXT_shader_object was introduced in March 2023 with Vulkan 1.3.246 after being worked on by a variety of companies. VK_EXT_shader_object adds a new shader object type to represent a single compiled shader stage. The Vulkan shader objects are intended to be more flexible but comparably performant alternative to pipeline objects.
Some Mesa drivers like Zink were very quick in adding support. The Mesa NVK NVIDIA Vulkan driver added support in early 2024. The Radeon RADV driver enables shader object support by default in Mesa 24.1 for Q2’2024.
Now in late 2025, the Intel ANV driver is finally and landed its patches around VK_EXT_shader_object. This merge that landed in Mesa Git a few hours ago finishes up the lengthy affair of adding VK_EXT_shader_object to the Intel Vulkan driver. Now it will be ready for its stable debut in November with Mesa 25.3.
