IntentLang

IntentLang (IL) is an early experiment with a minimal parser, type checker and TypeScript transpiler.

Packages

• @intentlang/core – parser, AST, checker and runtime helpers.
• @intentlang/cli – command‑line interface intent for checking and building IL files.
• @intentlang/examples – canonical examples and golden tests.

Getting started

1. Install dependencies:

   pnpm install

2. Run the test and lint suites:

   pnpm lint
   pnpm test
   pnpm -w typecheck

3. Build all packages:

   pnpm -w build

Quick example

uses { random: Random { } }

func add(a: Int, b: Int): Int
  requires a >= 0 && b >= 0
  ensures _ >= a && _ >= b
{ return a + b; }

test add_works { let r = random.int(); }

For loops

Iterate over a list with a for statement:

for x in [1, 2, 3] { }

Deterministic runs

intent can produce reproducible outputs by seeding its runtime:

pnpm --filter @intentlang/cli intent test file.il --seed-rng 1 --seed-clock 0
pnpm --filter @intentlang/cli intent build file.il --seed-rng 1 --seed-clock 0

--seed-rng fixes the pseudo‑random generator; --seed-clock sets the initial time returned by the runtime clock.

Documentation

• Web (Docusaurus): packages/docs → run pnpm docs:start or pnpm docs:build.
• Spec/PDF (LaTeX): IntentLang-LaTex → run latexmk (uses LuaLaTeX).

Note: the legacy root docs/ folder is deprecated and kept for history. New content lives under packages/docs and the LaTeX spec includes sources directly from the repo.

Grammar and Parser Notes

• The Tree‑sitter grammar enforces syntactic purity for pure_expr (no await, throw, or spawn) in contexts like meta.invariants and requires/ensures.
• Optional chaining cannot be mixed with non‑optional chaining inside a single postfix chain (e.g. a?.b.c is not allowed).
• Operator precedence follows the canonical EBNF: ?? binds looser than ||, which binds looser than &&, then bitwise, equality, relational, shift, additive, and multiplicative.
• Numeric tokens are unsigned; unary - is parsed at the expression level.

To rebuild the parser WASM used by the VS Code extension:

pnpm --filter vscode-intentlang run build-parser