Getting started meant cloning the repository, bootstrapping a compiler and
learning a task runner called `x`. That is a contributor's workflow handed to
everyone who wants to try the language.
Installing is now one command:
curl -fsSL https://workshopsoft.pages.workshopsoft.io/ludic/install.sh | sh
install.sh puts a complete toolchain — compiler, CLI, engine runtime, bundled
ludic.* packages, formatter, language server — in ~/.ludic and adds it to PATH.
Prebuilt artifacts are checksum-verified; where a platform has none, or the
release predates this layout, it bootstraps from the compiler's own IR seed with
clang. The docs site publishes the script beside the pages that quote it, so the
page and the script can never come from different releases.
`x` becomes `ludic`, and the surface splits by audience. A user of the language
sees `new`, `run`, `build`, `test`, `add`, `fmt`, `lsp`, `doctor`, `upgrade`;
`ludic new` scaffolds a project that builds and plays as it stands. Everything
the toolchain repo needs moved under `ludic dev` — build, test, reseed,
bootstrap-cfree, docs-gen, release — unchanged apart from the namespace. Those
tasks read arguments one position further along, so dispatch_dev sets a shift
and commands use arg_n()/arg_total() rather than each knowing its own depth.
Release artifacts become complete install roots (bin/ beside runtime/, packages/
and VERSION) rather than bare binaries, which is what the installer unpacks.
`ludic dev test` asserts the whole shape: it stages an install, puts it on PATH
with no LUDIC_HOME, and runs new -> build -> test through it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
There was no release workflow. Artifacts were built by `x release --publish` on
whatever machine the maintainer was sitting at, from whatever happened to be in
bin/, with no checksums and nothing proving the tagged tree passed its tests.
Pushing a v* tag now publishes. The workflow builds the toolchain from the IR
seed, runs `x test`, `x test-tools` and `x bootstrap-cfree` against the tagged
tree, and only then creates the Forgejo release. It refuses to publish when the
tag and VERSION disagree, or when CHANGELOG.md has no section for that version.
`x publish [vX.Y.Z]` is the command behind it and runs locally too. It builds
dist/ — a source tarball from the tag, this host's toolchain, and a SHA256SUMS
covering both — and takes the release notes from that version's CHANGELOG
section, so notes and changelog cannot drift. It only adds assets the release
is missing, which is how a macOS build gets attached to a Linux-built release.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
