Ecosystem Status

This page describes the current source tree rather than an aspirational product map. Every package is under active development and should be treated as pre-production unless stated otherwise.

Status summary

Project Package identity Role Maturity
Arx arxlang / arx / arx CLI Main language frontend and compiler CLI Functional prototype
ASTx astx / astx Shared AST model Functional, evolving library
IRx pyirx / irx Analysis, lowering, LLVM, and native runtime Functional experimental backend
PyArx pyarx / pyarx Python API for compiling and running Arx API foundation only
AIX airx / aix / aix CLI Symbolic AI-oriented language frontend Experimental MVP
ArxJIT arxjit / arxjit JIT decorator for a Python subset Frontend foundations only

The distribution name, Python import, and CLI are intentionally listed separately because they are not identical for IRx and AIX.

Arx

Arx owns .x source syntax, lexing, parsing, project discovery, CLI behavior, tests, bundled builtins, and the pure-Arx stdlib namespace.

Implemented today:

  • typed functions, defaults, extern declarations, and function templates
  • mutable variables, finite union aliases, casts, and type queries
  • if/else, while, count-style for, and list-valued for ... in
  • absolute, relative, grouped, namespace, stdlib, and installed-package imports
  • classes, inheritance, fields, methods, access modifiers, and default construction
  • lists and builtin range
  • fixed-shape numeric tensors plus runtime-shaped tensor parameters
  • static-schema DataFrames and typed Series
  • fatal assertions and the compiled arx test runner
  • token, AST, LLVM IR, object, executable, and run modes

Important limits:

  • tensors are currently readonly and use fixed-width numeric element types
  • runtime-shaped tensor parameters cannot yet be indexed dynamically
  • DataFrame columns are currently fixed-width numeric or Boolean
  • runtime-schema DataFrame parameters cannot expose columns by name
  • the language and standard library remain intentionally small

ASTx

ASTx is the shared, language-agnostic node model. It provides source locations, expressions, statements, type nodes, functions, modules, control flow, classes, templates, collections, tensors, DataFrames, buffer views, FFI types, and tree visualization.

ASTx does not lex or parse source, perform IRx semantic analysis, or promise that every modeled node has an IRx lowering. Node availability and backend support are separate questions.

IRx

IRx consumes ASTx nodes and owns semantic analysis, resolved sidecar metadata, LLVM lowering, native artifact compilation, linking, execution helpers, and runtime-feature activation.

Implemented areas include numeric promotion and casts, functions, imports, structured control flow, templates, class layout and dispatch, diagnostics, FFI contracts, buffers, lists, arrays, tensors, DataFrames, assertions, and the native Apache Arrow runtime.

IRx also exposes a Python RecordBatch API backed by a native Arrow C++ bridge. It supports schemas, builders, nullable values, scalar inspection, Arrow IPC file/buffer streams, and PyArrow interoperability for numeric, Boolean, UTF-8, large UTF-8, date, timestamp, and time columns.

IRx is not a source-language parser, a general query engine, or a complete implementation of every ASTx node.

PyArx

PyArx is intended to become the stable Python-facing compiler API. The current package provides:

  • immutable structured diagnostics and severity values
  • adapters for IRx diagnostics and Arx parser failures
  • ArxError, ParseError, CompileError, and ExecutionError

It does not yet provide public parse, compile, run, or artifact-management functions. Applications needing compilation must currently use the Arx CLI or lower-level Arx/IRx APIs.

AIX

AIX is an experimental symbolic frontend distributed as airx. It uses .aix files and maps its MVP syntax to ASTx and IRx.

The current MVP provides Unicode-aware lexing, function and constant definitions, typed parameters, local bindings, return/conditional-return forms, printing, compact or explicit block terminators, token/AST/LLVM inspection, and native backend handoff for supported programs.

APL-inspired operators such as ⍴, ⍳, ¨, ↑, and ↓ are reserved and tokenized but rejected by the parser. AIX does not yet expose Arx’s module, class, template, tensor, or DataFrame surface.

ArxJIT

ArxJIT is the planned Numba-style path from ordinary Python functions to ASTx and IRx. The current package implements:

  • the @jit decorator and JitFunction wrapper
  • scalar signature types (i32, i64, f32, f64, and bool_)
  • source extraction with structured diagnostics
  • validation of the proposed pure-Python subset

The decorator does not yet lower Python AST to ASTx or compile native callable code. Calling a decorated function executes the original Python function.

Release model

The build and publish scripts cover all six packages. Semantic release keeps the ecosystem dependency versions aligned at release time. A newly introduced package can temporarily show a scaffold version in the source tree until the next lockstep release updates it.