Documentation · v0.1.0-alpha.1

Alpha status

A published compiler for a growing language subset. Early development, with concrete evidence and explicit boundaries.

What the alpha supports

  • Frontend: parsing and diagnostics, name resolution, typing, and ownership/borrowing checks for the supported synchronous and async subset.
  • Values: primitives, strings, structs, collections, slices, closures, interfaces, and generic functions and struct types, subject to the specification’s restrictions.
  • Ownership: Copy/Move classification, partial moves, shared and mutable borrows, inferred lifetimes for stored views, and deterministic cleanup.
  • Errors: explicit error values and propagation, including async calls and task results.
  • Concurrency: polled async tasks, scoped tasks, channels and select, mutexes, timers, supported I/O, and cooperative cancellation APIs.
  • Native output: LLVM IR and a linked Rust runtime on validated hosts.
  • Tools: checking, formatting, native build/run, application tests, explicit dependencies, and lockfiles.

Current boundaries

  • The implemented subset is smaller than the full specification and not every feature combination has exhaustive conformance evidence.
  • Borrowed inputs to ordinary unscoped tasks are conservatively restricted. Scoped task borrowing has separate checked rules.
  • Scheduling is cooperative, with no forced preemption. Dropping a task handle detaches work; it does not cancel it.
  • Async frames retain values needed across suspension; general liveness-based frame shrinking is not implemented.
  • Generic interfaces, generic named types, and methods with their own type parameters are outside the locked MVP forms.
  • Package-level mutable var values, :=, raw pointers, source lifetime syntax, and unsafe are not supported source features.
  • Cross-compilation and unlisted release hosts are not validated. OS-specific APIs and signal/termination behavior have platform limits.
  • The existing Zore lexer/parser experiments do not make the distributed compiler self-hosted.

Native hosts and prerequisites

The release supplies Linux x64 GNU (glibc 2.39+, tested on Ubuntu 24.04), macOS 15+ on Apple Silicon and Intel, and Windows x64 MSVC archives. Native application builds use Rust 1.98.1, clang 15+, the host linker, and system libraries. Windows additionally needs Visual Studio C++ Build Tools and the Windows SDK.

check and fmt work without a native toolchain. See installation for exact downloads and the pinned Linux builder image.

Evidence and the work ahead

The MVP evidence inventory maps named compiler/runtime assertions and remaining coverage questions. Its historical baseline and dated follow-ups describe their own reviewed commits; they are not a universal proof for all programs. The roadmap tracks follow-up work and acceptance criteria.

Published-alpha provenance includes merged-source CI and tagged distribution validation. These validate the compiler and packaging paths exercised by those runs; they do not establish production readiness for every application.

Source and authority

The language specification at v0.1.0-alpha.1 is authoritative. These website tutorials are maintained separately and describe that pinned release. Stay on the same release tag when following deeper reference links.

Reviewed compiler source: edcf5847b259f28ef0bbd1409a8c6751b39725cb. Download and artifact provenance remain on the alpha release page. Zore and adapted upstream examples are licensed under Apache License 2.0.

Report a reproducible problem through compiler issues. Follow the security policy for private vulnerability reports.

Reviewed against Zore v0.1.0-alpha.1 · compiler source edcf5847b259f28ef0bbd1409a8c6751b39725cb. Upstream examples © Zore contributors, Apache 2.0.