Almide

A programming language designed for LLM code generation.

Playground · Specification · Grammar · Cheatsheet · Design Philosophy

What is Almide?

Almide is a statically-typed language optimized for AI-generated code. It compiles to native binaries (via Rust) and WebAssembly.

The core metric is modification survival rate — how often code still compiles and passes tests after a series of AI-driven modifications. The language achieves this through unambiguous syntax, actionable compiler diagnostics, and a standard library that covers common patterns out of the box.

The flywheel: LLMs write Almide reliably → more code is produced → training data grows → LLMs write it better → the ecosystem expands.

Quick Start

Try it in your browser → — No installation required.

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable, 1.89+)

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/almide/almide.git
cd almide
cargo build --release

Copy the binary to a directory on your PATH:

# macOS / Linux
cp target/release/almide ~/.local/bin/

# or system-wide
sudo cp target/release/almide /usr/local/bin/

Verify the installation:

almide --version
# almide 0.9.5

Hello World

fn main() -> Unit = {
  println("Hello, world!")
}

almide run hello.almd

Features

• Multi-target — Same source compiles to native binary (via Rust) or WebAssembly (direct emit)
• Generics — Functions (fn id[T](x: T) -> T), records, variant types, recursive variants with auto Box wrapping
• Pattern matching — Exhaustive match with variant destructuring
• Effect functions — effect fn for explicit error propagation (Result auto-wrapping)
• Bidirectional type inference — Type annotations flow into expressions (let xs: List[Int] = [])
• Codec system — Type.decode(value) / Type.encode(value) convention with auto-derive
• Map literals — ["key": value] syntax with m[key] access and for (k, v) in m iteration
• Fan concurrency — fan { a(); b() }, fan.map, fan.race, fan.any, fan.settle
• Top-level constants — let PI = 3.14 at module scope, compile-time evaluated
• Pipeline operator — data |> transform |> output
• Module system — Packages, sub-namespaces, visibility control, diamond dependency resolution
• Standard library — 381 functions across 22 modules (string, list, map, json, http, fs, etc.)
• Built-in testing — test "name" { assert_eq(a, b) } with almide test
• Actionable diagnostics — Every error includes file:line, context, and a concrete fix suggestion

Why Almide?

• Predictable — One canonical way to express each concept, reducing token branching for LLMs
• Local — Understanding any piece of code requires only nearby context
• Repairable — Compiler diagnostics guide toward a specific fix, not multiple possibilities
• Compact — High semantic density, low syntactic noise

For the full design rationale, see Design Philosophy.

Example

let PI = 3.14159265358979323846
let SOLAR_MASS = 4.0 * PI * PI

type Tree[T] =
  | Leaf(T)
  | Node(Tree[T], Tree[T])

fn tree_sum(t: Tree[Int]) -> Int =
  match t {
    Leaf(v) => v
    Node(left, right) => tree_sum(left) + tree_sum(right)
  }

effect fn greet(name: String) -> Result[Unit, String] = {
  guard string.len(name) > 0 else err("empty name")
  println("Hello, ${name}!")
  ok(())
}

effect fn main() -> Result[Unit, String] = {
  greet("world")
}

test "greet succeeds" {
  assert_eq("hello".len(), 5)
}

How It Works

Almide source (.almd) is compiled by a pure-Rust compiler through a three-layer codegen architecture:

.almd → Lexer → Parser → AST → Type Checker → Lowering → IR
                                                            ↓
                                              Nanopass Pipeline (semantic rewrites)
                                                            ↓
                                              Template Renderer (TOML-driven)
                                                            ↓
                                                    .rs / .wasm

The Nanopass pipeline applies target-specific transformations: ResultPropagation (Rust ?), CloneInsertion (Rust borrow analysis), LICM (loop-invariant code motion). The Template Renderer is purely syntactic — all semantic decisions are already encoded in the IR.

almide run app.almd              # Compile + execute (Rust target)
almide run app.almd -- arg1      # With arguments
almide build app.almd -o app     # Build standalone binary
almide build app.almd --target wasm  # Build WebAssembly (WASI)
almide compile                   # Compile to .almdi (module interface + IR)
almide compile parser            # Compile a specific module
almide compile --json            # Output interface as JSON
almide test                      # Find and run all test blocks (recursive)
almide test spec/lang/           # Run tests in a directory
almide test --run "pattern"      # Filter tests by name
almide check app.almd            # Type check only
almide check app.almd --json     # Type check with JSON output
almide fmt app.almd              # Format source code
almide clean                     # Clear build + dependency cache

Benchmark

Tested with the MiniGit benchmark — Claude Code implements a mini version control system from a spec, with multiple trials per language.

Language	Total Time	Avg Cost	Pass Rate
Ruby	73.1s	$0.36	40/40
Python	77.5s	$0.39	48/48
Go	102.0s	$0.50	46/46
Rust	113.7s	$0.54	38/40
TypeScript	133.0s	$0.62	40/40
Almide (no warmup)	239.1s	$1.13	20/20
Almide (with warmup)	261.6s	$1.03	20/20

Almide has no training data in any public LLM corpus yet — the generation speed gap is expected to narrow as more Almide code enters training sets. Despite being slower, Almide achieves 100% pass rate with zero failures across 40 trials.

WASM Binary Size

Almide emits WASM bytecode directly (no Rust/C intermediary). Each binary is self-contained — allocator, string handling, and runtime are all included. No external GC or host runtime dependency.

Program	Binary Size
Hello World	1,028 B
FizzBuzz	1,286 B
Fibonacci	1,361 B
Closure	1,443 B
Variant	1,777 B

Native Performance

Almide compiles to Rust, which then compiles to native machine code. No runtime, no GC, no interpreter.

Metric	Value
Binary size (minigit CLI)	635 KB (stripped)
Runtime (100 ops)	1.6s
Dependencies	0 (single static binary)
WASM target	almide build app.almd --target wasm

Project Status

Category	Status
Compiler	Pure Rust, single binary, 0 ICE
Targets	Rust (native), WASM (direct emit)
Codegen	v3 — Nanopass + TOML templates, fully target-agnostic walker
Stdlib	381 functions across 22 modules
Tests	142 test files pass (Rust), 129 pass (WASM)
Artifacts	.almdi module interface files via almide compile
Playground	Live — compiler runs as WASM in browser

Ecosystem

Grammar — almide-grammar

Single source of truth for Almide syntax — keywords, operators, precedence, and TextMate scopes. Written in Almide itself.

All tools that need to know Almide's syntax import this module rather than maintaining their own keyword lists:

# almide.toml
[dependencies]
almide-grammar = { git = "https://github.com/almide/almide-grammar", tag = "v0.1.0" }

import almide_grammar
almide_grammar.keyword_groups()    // 6 groups, 41 keywords
almide_grammar.precedence_table()  // 8 levels, pipe → unary

The compiler itself uses almide-grammar's TOML files (tokens.toml, precedence.toml) at build time to generate its lexer keyword table — ensuring the compiler and all tooling stay in sync.

Editor Support

• VS Code — vscode-almide — Syntax highlighting, bracket matching, comment toggling, code folding
• Tree-sitter — tree-sitter-almide — Tree-sitter grammar for editors that support it (Neovim, Helix, Zed)

Playground — playground

Browser-based compiler and runner. The Almide compiler runs as WASM — no server, no installation. Try it at almide.github.io/playground.

Documentation

• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md — Compiler pipeline, module map, design decisions
• docs/SPEC.md — Full language specification
• docs/GRAMMAR.md — EBNF grammar + stdlib reference
• docs/CHEATSHEET.md — Quick reference for AI code generation
• docs/DESIGN.md — Design philosophy and trade-offs
• docs/STDLIB-SPEC.md — Standard library specification (381 functions)
• docs/roadmap/ — Language evolution plans

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request on GitHub.

After cloning, install the git hooks:

brew install lefthook  # macOS; see https://github.com/evilmartians/lefthook for other platforms
lefthook install

All commits must be in English (enforced by the commit-msg hook). See CLAUDE.md for project conventions.

License

Licensed under either of MIT or Apache 2.0 at your option.