optimize-rb

The optimize gem — a hand-rolled YARV bytecode optimizer for CRuby — plus the companion post and research for the RubyKaigi 2026 talk Ruby the Hard Way: Writing Bytecode to Optimize Plain Ruby by Samuel Giddins.

Talk page: https://rubykaigi.org/2026/presentations/segiddins.html

Layout

• optimizer/ — the optimize gem: IR, codec, passes, harness, demos
• post.md — long-form companion to the talk
• talk/ — bibliography and references
• research/ — notes and prior art
• experiments/ — runnable Ruby experiments (shared Gemfile, numbered subdirs)
• mcp-server/ — local MCP server that runs Ruby in Docker for the harness
• docs/superpowers/ — design specs and implementation plans

Prerequisites

• Ruby 4.0.2 (see each subproject's .ruby-version)
• Docker Desktop or compatible daemon (for the MCP server)
• jj for version control

Getting started

cd optimizer && bundle install && bundle exec rake test
cd ../experiments && bundle install
cd ../mcp-server && bundle install && bundle exec rake test

The MCP server is registered via .mcp.json at the repo root; Claude Code picks it up automatically when started from this directory.