Dao

Dao is a language project for high-performance structured computation.

Current priorities:

• language surface and grammar
• compiler architecture and diagnostics
• memory/execution model (mode / resource)
• numeric, graph, routing, and GPU-oriented workloads

The project is governance-first: contracts under docs/contracts/ are the authoritative source of intent. Implementation is well underway — a C++23 host compiler targeting LLVM, a native runtime, an initial standard library, a web playground, and a Dao-implemented bootstrap compiler that lowers Tier A Dao to textual LLVM IR.

Repository shape

• bootstrap/ — self-hosting compiler subsystems written in Dao
• compiler/ — C++23 host compiler: lexer → parser → resolve → typecheck → HIR → MIR → LLVM backend → driver, plus tooling-facing analysis
• runtime/ — runtime and execution backends
• stdlib/ — standard library surface
• spec/ — grammar, syntax notes, semantic reference inputs
• docs/ — contracts, architecture index, explanatory docs
• examples/ — small Dao programs and syntax probes
• testdata/ — parser/compiler fixtures
• tools/ — playground, LSP, formatter, and diagnostics tooling
• ai/ — Bonsai governance skills, baselines, outputs

Governance docs

The authoritative files for AI-assisted work are:

1. CLAUDE.md
2. AGENTS.md
3. docs/contracts/CONTRACT_*.md
4. docs/ARCH_INDEX.md

README.md is informational only.

Implementation roadmap

See docs/ROADMAP.md for the staged implementation plan and docs/compiler_bootstrap_and_architecture.md for current architecture notes around frontend/IR/backend split, C ABI interop, and self-hosting.

Tooling

Dao treats the playground and IDE-facing tooling as first-class compiler consumers. See tools/, docs/PLAYGROUND_ARCHITECTURE.md, and docs/IDE_AND_TOOLING.md.

Grammar

The current reference grammar and lexical notes live under spec/grammar/. Use docs/contracts/CONTRACT_SYNTAX_SURFACE.md for the frozen language-facing syntax guarantees and spec/syntax_probes/ for parser/readability probes.