NKIDO

A high-performance audio synthesis system for live coding, combining a domain-specific language with a real-time audio engine.

Components

• Akkado - A DSL for live-coding musical patterns and modular synthesis, combining Strudel/Tidal-style mini-notation with functional DAG-based audio processing
• Cedar - A graph-based audio synthesis engine with a stack-based bytecode VM, designed for real-time DSP with zero allocations
• Web IDE - A browser-based live coding environment built with SvelteKit

Quick Start

Native Build

# Configure and build
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
cmake --build build

# Run tests
./build/cedar/tests/cedar_tests
./build/akkado/tests/akkado_tests

# Use CLI tools
./build/tools/akkado-cli/akkado-cli --help
./build/tools/nkido-cli/nkido-cli --help

Web IDE

cd web
bun install
bun run dev

Requirements

• C++20 compiler (GCC 10+, Clang 10+, MSVC 2019+)
• CMake 3.21+
• Bun (for web app)
• Emscripten (for WASM builds)

Example

// Simple oscillator patch
osc("sin", 440) |> out(%, %)

// Pattern with field access
pat("c4 e4 g4") as e |> osc("saw", e.freq) |> % * e.vel |> out(%, %)

// Chord with envelope
C4' |> osc("tri", %) |> adsr(%.trig, 0.01, 0.2) |> out(%, %)

// Runtime parameters exposed in UI
freq = param("freq", 440, 20, 2000)
osc("sin", freq) |> out(%, %)

Architecture

Source Code -> Lexer -> Parser -> AST -> DAG -> Topological Sort -> Bytecode -> VM
     ^                                                                   |
     |___________________ Hot-swap state preservation ___________________|

The system supports glitch-free live coding through semantic ID tracking and micro-crossfading between program versions.

Development

Code Generation

After adding new opcodes to Cedar, regenerate the opcode metadata:

cd web && bun run build:opcodes

This generates cedar/include/cedar/generated/opcode_metadata.hpp from the source files.

Documentation

See docs/ for design documents and web/static/docs/ for user-facing documentation.

License

MIT