Ridge

A typed functional language for the BEAM. Hindley-Milner inference, row polymorphism, actor-first concurrency, and effects tracked in the type system. Compiles to BEAM bytecode via Core Erlang.

Status: 0.2.0 — first public release. The language and tooling are usable end-to-end. Pre-1.0 minors may include breaking changes; patch releases within 0.2.x will not. See CHANGELOG.md for what landed and docs/spec.md for the full language specification.

What you get

• Statically typed with Hindley-Milner inference and row polymorphism
• Compiled to BEAM bytecode via Core Erlang
• Nine first-class capabilities (io, fs, net, time, random, env, proc, spawn, ffi) visible in every function signature
• Immutable by default; mutable state confined to actors
• Actor-first concurrency
• Workspace model with architectural rules enforced by the compiler
• No null — Option and Result are the only way to express optionality and failure
• LSP server (diagnostics, hover, go-to-definition) and VS Code extension
• Built-in test runner, formatter, and REPL

Hello, world

fn io main () =
    Io.println "Hello, World"

More sample programs live under examples/.

Install

Pre-built binaries are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Install scripts download the release archive, verify its SHA256, and place ridge and ridge-lsp on your PATH. If no binary exists for your platform the scripts fall back to cargo install.

Linux / macOS

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ridge-lang/ridge/main/tools/install/install.sh)"

Windows (PowerShell)

& ([scriptblock]::Create((iwr -useb 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ridge-lang/ridge/main/tools/install/install.ps1').Content))

Full install notes, environment overrides, and troubleshooting live in tools/install/README.md.

Quickstart

ridge new hello            # scaffold a new project
cd hello
ridge run                  # build and run
ridge test                 # run the test suite
ridge fmt                  # format .ridge files
ridge repl                 # interactive REPL

The full walk-through, including project layout and capability declarations, is in docs/tutorial.md.

Editor support

• VS Code: install the Ridge extension from the Marketplace, or run code --install-extension ridge-lang.vscode-ridge. It bundles a TextMate grammar and an LSP client wired to ridge-lsp. Source under tools/vscode-ridge/.
• Any LSP-capable editor can talk to the ridge-lsp binary directly.

Documentation

• Tutorial — install plus a guided first project
• Language specification — formal definition
• Grammar (EBNF) — parser reference
• Examples — runnable sample programs

Release signing

Release archives are signed with Sigstore keyless signing via the GitHub Actions OIDC token. Each archive ships with a .cosign.bundle sidecar containing the signature, certificate, and Rekor transparency-log entry. The install scripts verify the signature automatically when cosign is present (advisory diagnostic R055 if cosign is missing, fatal R056 if verification fails). To verify a release manually, see Verifying release signatures manually.

Building from source

cargo build --workspace
cargo test --workspace

Prerequisites: Rust 1.88+, Erlang/OTP 26+, git 2.20+. Repository layout and contributor conventions live in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first — it covers branch naming, commit conventions, and how to propose language-level changes. By participating you agree to the Code of Conduct.

Security

To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.