Getting Started

The compiler is a CMake project written in C++20. Building it requires LLVM with LLVMConfig.cmake on the CMake search path (development has used LLVM 18 through 22) and a C++20 compiler such as GCC 12+ or Clang 15+.

Build the compiler

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

This produces build/src/cli/agnostic. Confirm it works:

./build/src/cli/agnostic --version

Write a program

package main

import "stdio"

func main() {
    stdio.PrintlnStr("Hello, World!")
}

Save this as hello.agn.

Compile and run

./build/src/cli/agnostic hello.agn --backend=llvm --output=hello
./hello

--backend=llvm (the default) produces a static, libc-free Linux executable. Internally the compiler emits an object file and links it with cc -nostdlib -static -no-pie -e _start, so a C compiler needs to be on PATH at compile time even though the resulting binary does not depend on libc at runtime.

--backend=nvm produces a .bin file of Novaria Virtual Machine bytecode instead of a native executable. Running it needs a Novaria kernel or a bytecode interpreter, neither of which ships in this repository.

Continue with Syntax for the language itself, or Toolchain for the full list of compiler flags.