Aether is a local-first programming language and CLI toolchain hosted inthis repository (historically labeled XLang). It parses only Aether source,emits verified AETH bytecode, and runs that bytecode in the Aether VM. Itdoes not transpile to Rust, C, JavaScript, LLVM, or any other language.
As of this report, the project has:
Completed the language pilot program M0–M9 within documented bounds(surface 0.11, package 0.12 tooling).
Completed the product completion arc TP-1 (integrity) + TP-2 (local technical preview) under AGENTS Constitution and SOP phases 8–10.
Designed but not implemented M10 multi-unit offline projects (ADR-013).
This is not a 1.0 general systems language. Claims below are bounded,evidence-linked, and deliberately non-marketing.
Interpretation: Language pilots completed research→implement. Productcompletion for integrity + local technical preview completed audit→harden→deliver. M10 implementation and any 1.0 platform work are new SOPcycles, not silent unfinished core.
5. Milestone program (M0–M10)
ID
Theme
Version / AETH
Status
Primary artifacts
M0
Research + AI-first foundation
—
Complete
NORTH_STAR, CORE_CLAIMS, research/, ADR-002
M1
Value/resource semantics
Design
Accepted direction
DESIGN-M1, ADR-003, M1 matrix
M2
Bounded arena + buffers
0.6 / v6
Implemented
ADR-004, AETHER_0.6
M3
Structural authoring
v1…v6 current
Implemented
ADR-005, authoring protocols
M4
Error[Whole] effect
0.7 / v7
Implemented
ADR-007, M4 design/matrix
M5
Deterministic comptime
0.8 / v8
Implemented
ADR-008, M5 design/matrix
M6
Dual-layout tables
0.9 / v9
Implemented
ADR-009, M6 design/matrix
M7
Structured nurseries
0.10 / v10
Implemented
ADR-010, M7 design/matrix
M8
Pure host ABI pilot
0.11 / v11
Implemented
ADR-011, M8 design/matrix
M9
Offline project tooling
package 0.12
Implemented pilot
ADR-012, M9 design/matrix
M10
Multi-unit offline projects
tooling (planned)
Designed only
ADR-013, DESIGN-M10, M10 matrix
5.1 What each implemented milestone delivered (honest bounds)
Milestone
In product
Explicit non-claims
M2
One arena, Whole/Truth buffers, closed allocate outcomes
No ambient allocator; no resource host ABI crossing
Accept this progress report as the institutional snapshot at 1ab0be1.
Implement M10 against M10-VALIDATION-MATRIX.md(path grammar, multi-unit example, project format, tests, DOC-SYNC,delivery report) — full SOP 7 → 8 → Done.
Optionally run aether-gate -Mode full and attach wall-time/hash evidence tothe audit trail.
Archive/copy dist/aether-0.12.0-tp/ if the local preview binary set isneeded offline outside the monorepo.
Do not start C/FFI, registry, full LSP, or native backend without a newhuman-approved ADR and threat-model update.
19. One-page scorecard
Dimension
Score
Comment
Local-first AETH toolchain
Strong
Seed path, verify, VM, CLI
Evidence discipline
Strong
ADRs, matrices, dual-compare, claims register
Constitution / SOP adherence
Strong
Pack law, gates, delivery reports
Language completeness
Bounded pilot
Deliberately small surface
Multi-file projects
Designed
Not implemented
Public distribution
Local TP only
No mandated public release
1.0 readiness
No
Honest non-claim
20. Document control
Field
Value
Title
Full Project Progress Report
Location
docs/PROGRESS_REPORT-FULL-PROJECT.md
Supersedes
Ad-hoc chat summaries; does not replace MANIFEST or milestone delivery reports
Update trigger
After each milestone Done or completion-target change
Honesty rule
Prefer under-claim; never promote NORTH_STAR to current behavior
End of full project progress report. Prepared under AGENTS Constitution:evidence over aspiration, Rule IDs over vague compliance, Done only whenmachine-checkable and documented.
One-person studio (WPAI). Warehouse shifts to fund the forge: Python tools, Minecraft compat mods, AI-assisted music. Human-directed, fully disclosed. AuADHD and using it.
This repository hosts Aether, a new local-first language and CLI toolchain fordeterministic, AI-primary authorship. Aether 0.12.0 parses only Aethersource, emits deterministic AETH v11 bytecode, verifies every artifact, and runsit in the Aether VM. It never translates source to Rust, C, JavaScript, LLVM,or another language. Verified AETH v4/v5/v6/v7/v8/v9/v10 artifacts remaincompatible inputs with their original meanings; new compilation emits v11.
Seed-hosted compile path, resources, effects, comptime, and layout
Default compilation is no longer bootstrap-hosted for user programs.
aether compile invokes the Aether-written seed compiler(seed/aether_seed.aeth, embedded as SEED_COMPILER_ARTIFACT) through theforge ABI.
The Rust core remains the bootstrap: rebuild the seed (compile --bootstrap),produce the AST for check, and verify seed output against bootstrap in tests.
The seed self-hosts, and the shipped examples plus a complete canonical-surfaceregression corpus produce bytecode byte-identical to the Rust bootstrap.
Seed Profile emits the complete prior canonical surface plus Aether 0.11'sdocumented M2 resource, M4 error, M5 comptime, M6 layout, M7 nursery, and M8host-pilot corpora: named locals/parameters, every statement and shallowexpression family, borrow/move/access, multi-weave calls, immutablerecords, closed arena / Whole-or-Truth-buffer outcomes, dual-layout Wholetables, the explicit raises Whole, raise, forward call, and terminalhandle call forms, root-only literal comptime bind, structured nurseries,and capability-closed host weave / HOST_CALL. New compilation emits verifiedAETH v11 (language 0.11). Toolchain 0.12 adds offline project verify and format. See docs/AETHER_0.11.md anddocs/SEED_PROFILE.md.
weave leaf [value: Whole] -> Whole raises Whole:
raise value
weave main [] -> Whole:
bind mutable success <- 0
bind mutable code <- 0
handle call leaf 17 into success otherwise error into code
M4 is deliberately one bounded abortive Error[Whole] effect, not a generalexception or algebraic-effects system. Effect boundaries are copy-only andcannot cross live owners, loans, arenas, buffers, or M2 outcomes.
M5 is deliberately one bounded evaluator, not a macro or build-script system:
weave main [] -> Whole:
comptime bind table_width <- product 16 8
comptime bind header_size <- sum 12 4
yield sum table_width header_size
It accepts exactly five checked literal Whole operations, has a fixed1,024-directive budget, and has no names, calls, loops, text, resource, effect,or host authority surface. Seedocs/DESIGN-M5-DETERMINISTIC-COMPT....
M6 adds author-visible layout for multi-field tables:
shape particle:
mass Whole
charge Whole
weave main [] -> Whole:
bind memory <- arena 4096
bind mutable parts <- table particle layout columns
...
Aether 0.11 tooling exposes a local, machine-readable aether.ast/v6 documentand accepts bounded aether.edit/v6 structural edits. The protocoluses exact canonical source revisions to reject stale requests, supports typedtop-level record/shape/weave insert, replace, and delete operations, reparses theformatter-owned result, and seed-compiles it before the CLI writes source to anexplicit output path. It exposes effect annotations, M4/M5/M6/M7 nodes, and arequired Bind.stage (runtime or comptime) without reinterpreting v1–v4.See docs/AETHER_AUTHORING_PROTOCOL_v5.mdand docs/ADR-005-structural-authoring-....
Still honest limits
Full invalid-source diagnostic parity is not claimed; the Rust bootstrapremains the diagnostic authority (aether check).
Records are intentionally non-recursive and immutable. Resource outcomes areimmediate terminal choose conditions, not first-class values; Buffer ownerscannot be weave results or cross the host ABI.
M4 supports only Error[Whole], Whole erroring results, and terminalhandling. It has no effect inference, resumption, cleanup, cancellation, orresource/effect composition.
M5 supports only one literal Whole arithmetic operation per explicit rootdirective. It has no dependency chaining, compile-time calls, control flow,macro expansion, build hooks, or configurable fuel.
Host invocation accepts and returns primitives only; use an Aether weave toproject a record field.
Future language extensions require their own seed-emission parity proof beforethey become part of the product compile surface.
Bootstrap rebuild of the seed is still required after changing the seed source.
M3 edits are deliberately top-level declaration operations. Fine-grainedstatement/expression edits and any claim of universal syntax-error-proof AIgeneration remain future, separately versioned work.
North star and evidence-led roadmap
Aether 0.8 is the current executable contract, not the full long-range languagevision. The project is deliberately designing for AI-primary authorship whilekeeping deterministic, locally verifiable compiler authority. Read the designset in this order:
docs/NORTH_STAR.md — intended product direction andcurrent-law constraints.
docs/CORE_CLAIMS.md — proven facts, accepteddirections, research hypotheses, and prohibited claims.
docs/research/ — primary-source reference study,decomposition, and evidence plan.
The CLI is the shipped Aether product interface. It exposes canonical structureand validated structural edits locally without introducing an application, model,or network authority. The former Studio workbench was retired indocs/ADR-006-retire-aether-studio.md;historical material remains under legacy/ as reference only.
Top comments (1)
Aether in XLang
This repository hosts Aether, a new local-first language and CLI toolchain fordeterministic, AI-primary authorship. Aether 0.12.0 parses only Aethersource, emits deterministic AETH v11 bytecode, verifies every artifact, and runsit in the Aether VM. It never translates source to Rust, C, JavaScript, LLVM,or another language. Verified AETH v4/v5/v6/v7/v8/v9/v10 artifacts remaincompatible inputs with their original meanings; new compilation emits v11.
Seed-hosted compile path, resources, effects, comptime, and layout
Default compilation is no longer bootstrap-hosted for user programs.
aether compileinvokes the Aether-written seed compiler(seed/aether_seed.aeth, embedded asSEED_COMPILER_ARTIFACT) through theforge ABI.compile --bootstrap),produce the AST forcheck, and verify seed output against bootstrap in tests.Seed Profile emits the complete prior canonical surface plus Aether 0.11'sdocumented M2 resource, M4 error, M5 comptime, M6 layout, M7 nursery, and M8host-pilot corpora: named locals/parameters, every statement and shallowexpression family,
borrow/move/access, multi-weave calls, immutablerecords, closedarena/ Whole-or-Truth-buffer outcomes, dual-layout Wholetables, the explicitraises Whole,raise,forward call, and terminalhandle callforms, root-only literalcomptime bind, structured nurseries,and capability-closedhost weave/HOST_CALL. New compilation emits verifiedAETH v11 (language 0.11). Toolchain 0.12 adds offline project verify and format. See docs/AETHER_0.11.md anddocs/SEED_PROFILE.md.M4 is deliberately one bounded abortive
Error[Whole]effect, not a generalexception or algebraic-effects system. Effect boundaries are copy-only andcannot cross live owners, loans, arenas, buffers, or M2 outcomes.M5 is deliberately one bounded evaluator, not a macro or build-script system:
It accepts exactly five checked literal
Wholeoperations, has a fixed1,024-directive budget, and has no names, calls, loops, text, resource, effect,or host authority surface. Seedocs/DESIGN-M5-DETERMINISTIC-COMPT....M6 adds author-visible layout for multi-field tables:
layout rowsandlayout columnsstore the same logical cells with differentphysical order. Seedocs/DESIGN-M6-EXPLICIT-LAYOUT-SHA....Versioned structural authoring contract
Aether 0.11 tooling exposes a local, machine-readable
aether.ast/v6documentand accepts boundedaether.edit/v6structural edits. The protocoluses exact canonical source revisions to reject stale requests, supports typedtop-level record/shape/weave insert, replace, and delete operations, reparses theformatter-owned result, and seed-compiles it before the CLI writes source to anexplicit output path. It exposes effect annotations, M4/M5/M6/M7 nodes, and arequiredBind.stage(runtimeorcomptime) without reinterpreting v1–v4.See docs/AETHER_AUTHORING_PROTOCOL_v5.mdand docs/ADR-005-structural-authoring-....Still honest limits
aether check).chooseconditions, not first-class values; Buffer ownerscannot be weave results or cross the host ABI.Error[Whole],Wholeerroring results, and terminalhandling. It has no effect inference, resumption, cleanup, cancellation, orresource/effect composition.North star and evidence-led roadmap
Aether 0.8 is the current executable contract, not the full long-range languagevision. The project is deliberately designing for AI-primary authorship whilekeeping deterministic, locally verifiable compiler authority. Read the designset in this order:
These documents do not claim general effects, concurrency, SoA lowering, Cinterop, fine-grained structural edits, or a native backend exist in 0.8.
Workspace
crates/xlang-core— bootstrap parser, typed resource semantic plan,emitter/verifier/VM, forge API, seed pathapps/xlang-cli—aetherCLI (seed compile by default)seed/— Aether-written compiler source + checked-in artifactexamples/— programs proven seed-identical to bootstrap, including M2 casesAGENTS.md— Level 4 entry → AGENTS Constitution packCommand Line
Product interface
The CLI is the shipped Aether product interface. It exposes canonical structureand validated structural edits locally without introducing an application, model,or network authority. The former Studio workbench was retired indocs/ADR-006-retire-aether-studio.md;historical material remains under
legacy/as reference only.Governance
Binding quality law: AGENTS.md → universal AGENTS Constitution pack.Product contract: MANIFEST.md, docs/.