KIO Programming Language

A lightweight, fast, modern language with a minimal interpreter and growing tooling.

• CLI interpreter: builds with CMake and installs to /usr/local/bin/kio.
• VS Code extension: separate vscode-extension/ folder with syntax highlighting and snippets.
• Clean baseline build profile keeps the project always runnable; advanced features (LSP, JIT) can be enabled after alignment.

Quick Start

• Build

  bash scripts/clean_build.sh
  bash scripts/build.sh

• Run

  ./build/kio examples/hello.kio

• Install (system-wide, no reconfigure)

  sudo cmake --install build

Language Status

• Implemented

  • Variables: let x = 42;
  • Print: print "hello";
  • Arithmetic: + - * / %
  • Comparisons: == != < <= > >= (return 1 or 0)
  • Grouping: ( ... )
  • Assignment: x = x + 1;
  • I/O: save "state.json"; / load "state.json";
  • Import: import "examples/hello.kio";
  • System query: sys "time"; (ms since epoch), sys "cpu_model", sys "mem_total_kb", sys "disk_root_kb", sys "os_name"

• In progress / Roadmap

  • Blocks { ... }, if/else, and while statements
  • Standard library modules
  • LSP server (hover, completion, diagnostics) with VS Code integration
  • JIT, parallel execution, semantic tokens

Examples

• examples/hello.kio

  let x = 41 + 1;
  print x;
  print "kio";
  

• Simple comparisons

  print 3 < 4;
  print 5 == 5;
  print 6 != 7;
  

VS Code Extension

The extension lives in vscode-extension/ and uses a TextMate grammar for highlighting. Snippets include kio-print, kio-let, kio-if, kio-while.

• Development run

  1. Open vscode-extension/ in VS Code
  2. Press F5 to start the Extension Development Host
  3. Open a .kio file

• Packaging

  npm install -g vsce
  cd vscode-extension
  vsce package

• Logo

  • Source image: docs/image.jpg
  • For the extension marketplace icon, copy the image inside the extension package:

    mkdir -p vscode-extension/images
    cp docs/image.jpg vscode-extension/images/logo.jpg

    The extension package.json references images/logo.jpg.

Build Profiles

• Stable (default via scripts/build.sh)

  • KIO_BUILD_LSP=OFF, KIO_ENABLE_JIT=OFF, KIO_ENABLE_PARALLEL=OFF, KIO_ENABLE_LTO=OFF
  • Goal: Always-works baseline

• Advanced

  • Enable LSP/JIT/Parallel once headers and sources are aligned. Use CMake options:

    cmake -S . -B build \
      -DKIO_BUILD_LSP=ON \
      -DKIO_ENABLE_JIT=ON \
      -DKIO_ENABLE_PARALLEL=ON
    cmake --build build -j

Contributing

• See CONTRIBUTING.md
• Code style: keep the code warning-free and the baseline build green. Add tests/examples where possible.

License

• GPL-3.0-only. See LICENSE.