Chemical is an innovative, performant, type-safe, and user-friendly programming language with a low memory footprint. It comes with first-class tooling out of the box, all customizable by developers.
Important
Chemical is in pre-alpha state, expect breaking changes and do not use in production.
- Download & Extract the latest ZIP from the Releases page.
- Inside the folder, run
./chemical --configureor./chemical.exe --configure - Verify by running
chemical -v
- Easy to Learn: Master in under a week.
- Great IDE Support: LSP with syntax highlighting, completions, diagnostics, and more.
- Compile-Time Evaluation: Powerful
comptimefeatures. - Low Memory Footprint: Tiny executables, no garbage collector.
- Multiple Backends: LLVM & C (both fully functional).
- C Interop: Translate between C & Chemical.
- Flexible Build System: Custom DSL for builds and modules.
| Component | Status |
|---|---|
| Lexer, Parser, Sym Res | ✅ |
| Native Codegen (LLVM) | ✅ |
| C Translation & TCC JIT | ✅ |
| Basic Build System | ✅ |
| Basic Multi-threading | ✅ |
| Basic LSP | ✅ |
| Standard Library & Docs | 🔄 In Progress |
| Embedded Languages | 🔄 In Progress |
| Advanced LSP Support | 🔄 Planned |
| Memory Management & Safety | 🔄 Partial |
| Advanced Build System Support | 🔄 Planned |
| Comptime Features | 🔄 Planned |
| Compiler Plugins | 🔄 Planned |
| Mobile & Web Support | 🔄 Planned |
These features should give you an idea about features I have worked on
- C-like syntax with structs & namespaces
- Arrays, enums, unions
- Native lambdas (with capture)
- Macros & annotations
- Implicit & explicit casting
- Extension functions (like Kotlin)
- Raw pointers & memory control
- Full constructors & destructors
- Explicit copying (
.copy()required) - Comptime support & generics
- Overloading, variants, type aliases
- Trait & impl (Rust-like)
- Name mangling & conflict detection
# 0. One-time setup (after cloning) — downloads dependencies & submodules
./scripts/setup.sh
# Or with LLVM support:
./scripts/setup.sh --with-llvm
# 1. Configure CMake
./scripts/configure.sh # (use --no-llvm if you didn't pass --with-llvm to setup)
# 2. Build
./scripts/build.sh --tcc # TCCCompiler (fast, no LLVM)
# 3. Test
./scripts/test.sh --tcc # Build & run testsInteractive TUI: ./scripts/tui.sh provides a curses menu to run all scripts, tweak options, and save/load configs.
For detailed instructions covering all platforms, IDEs, and scenarios, see the Building Chemical guide.
- 8–16 GB RAM
- C++20 toolchain
- LLVM (optional, for Compiler target)
- CMake 3.15+
| Script | Purpose |
|---|---|
scripts/tui.sh |
Interactive TUI — curses-based menu to run all scripts, tweak options, save/load configs |
scripts/setup.sh |
One-time setup after cloning: downloads libtcc, updates submodules, (optionally LLVM with --with-llvm) |
scripts/configure.sh |
Configure CMake project (use --no-llvm to skip LLVM) |
scripts/build.sh |
Build targets: --tcc, --llvm, --lsp, --all |
scripts/test.sh |
Build & run tests: --tcc, --llvm, --plugins, --no-run, --no-build |
⚠️ --no-build: Skips rebuilding the C++ compiler — changes to.cpp/.hfiles are ignored. Only use when iterating on.chtest files without compiler changes.
- Clone
chemical-vscodefor the VS Code extension. - Build the LSP server:
./scripts/build.sh --lsp - Launch the LSP server before launching the extension.
Open an issue for any build errors.
Chemical exists to let you embed complex, domain-specific syntax into the language via compiler plugins. Extensions are first-class: add new syntax and behaviors without touching the core. Tooling (syntax highlighting, editor parsing) must continue to work for extended syntax. Scalability and extensibility are part of Chemical’s DNA.
Real projects frequently need features a language didn’t originally include. Chemical aims to provide the capabilities you actually need while avoiding “syntax pollution.” Powerful, composable abstractions for library authors and power users come with sensible defaults and a gentle learning curve for beginners. The goal: lots of capability, minimal surprise.
Long-term, Chemical will promote memory safety while keeping the language simple to use. Safety is a priority but not yet fully enforced — the initial focus is on core functionality and tooling. Once the core is stable, compiler-enforced safety checks will be added progressively; the beta compiler will enforce baseline safety guarantees.
We welcome all contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
Chemical compiler is MIT-licensed and will remain open source. Use it freely—credit is appreciated but not required.