Zoxi

Zoxi is a small language layer on top of Rust.

You write .zo files, Zoxi transpiles them into Rust under .zoxi/src, then compiles them with rustc.

What Zoxi Adds

Zoxi keeps normal Rust syntax unless it recognizes one of its language features.

• : return syntax instead of ->
• string as an alias for String
• owned string literals with interpolation: "Hello, {name}"
• .view() as as_str()
• vector literal sugar: [1, 2, 3]
• map literal sugar: { "name": "zoxi", "age": 1 }
• index assignment sugar: map["key"] = value
• iterator helpers with arrow closures: map, filter, find, findIndex

Example:

fn greet(name: &str): string {
    "Hello, {name}!"
}

fn main() {
    let nums = [1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10];
    let doubled: Vec<i32> = nums.map(x => x * 2);
    println!("{} {:?}", greet("Zoxi"), doubled);
}

Project Layout

Write Zoxi source in src/**/*.zo:

my-app/
├── src/
│   └── main.zo
└── zoxi.toml

Generated and cached files live in .zoxi/:

.zoxi/
├── src/                  # generated Rust
└── .cache/
    ├── transpile-state
    ├── build-state
    ├── artifacts/
    └── incremental/

Shared dependency caches live globally in ~/.zoxi/cache/.

Dependencies

Zoxi can manage registry dependencies with:

zoxi add itertools
zoxi remove itertools

For user projects, Zoxi does not use Cargo at runtime.

• crate metadata is fetched from crates.io
• crate archives are downloaded directly
• dependencies are compiled with rustc
• compiled dependency artifacts are shared globally in ~/.zoxi/cache

CLI

Build:

zoxi build
zoxi build -r

Run:

zoxi run
zoxi run -r
zoxi run -r -- arg1 arg2

Test:

zoxi test
zoxi test -r

Use --path to run against another project directory:

zoxi --path examples/hello run -r

Development

Build the Zoxi CLI itself with Cargo:

cargo run -- --path examples/hello run -r

The Zoxi repository uses Cargo for developing Zoxi. Zoxi projects use the Zoxi runtime pipeline instead.

Status Output

The CLI prints Cargo-style progress output such as:

    Checking /path/to/project/src
       Fresh transpilation cache (1 files)
   Compiling /path/to/project/.zoxi/src/main.rs
    Finished release profile [optimized]
     Running /path/to/project/.zoxi/.cache/artifacts/release/app

Unchanged sources are checked through file metadata so repeated runs avoid unnecessary transpile and compile work.

Limitations

Current runtime dependency support is intentionally narrow:

• registry dependencies only
• no path, git, or workspace dependencies
• no build.rs support yet
• proc-macro support exists but is not fully battle-tested across complex dependency graphs

Docs

See DOC.md for the current syntax reference and Rust translation details.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.