MLang is a general-purpose programming language that aims for the productivity of Kotlin/Swift and the performance of Go/C#, while guaranteeing memory safety without a stop-the-world garbage collector. It compiles ahead-of-time to native code through an LLVM backend.
namespace com.example.hello
import std.io.Console
public fn main() {
let name: "world"
Console.println("Hello, ${name}!")
}
- Memory safety without a tracing GC. A hybrid of compile-time ownership (move semantics + borrow checking) and automatic reference counting with compiler-elided counts. No leaks, no dangling pointers, no use-after-free, no double free — and predictable, pause-free latency. (An optional backup tracing collector can be switched on for cyclic graphs.)
- Null safety by construction.
Tis never null;T?is. Safe-navigation (?.), Elvis (?:), and the null-coalescing operators make absence explicit. - Structured concurrency. First-class coroutines (
async/await,launch), CSP-styleChannel<T>, and a work-stealing scheduler. - One obvious way to build.
mbuildfor builds,mangofor packages,mfmtfor formatting,mlsfor editor intelligence — all first-party. - Fast, parallel, incremental compilation. The compiler is multi-threaded end to end with a persistent on-disk cache.
| Tool | Binary | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Compiler | mlangc |
Lexing → … → native code generation. |
| Runtime | mlang-runtime |
Allocator, scheduler, intrinsics. |
| Package manager | mango |
Dependencies, publishing, registry. |
| Build tool | mbuild |
Project orchestration. |
| Formatter | mfmt |
Canonical code style. |
| Language server | mls |
LSP for any editor. |
File extension: .m
Prebuilt installers are published on the releases page. Installing MLang always installs the mango package manager with it (mango is a required dependency). mango can also be installed on its own from the mango releases.
base=https://github.com/mlang-org/mlang/releases/latest/download
curl -LO $base/mlang_0.1.0_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./mlang_0.1.0_amd64.debThe mlang package depends on mango, so both must be installed together.
base=https://github.com/mlang-org/mlang/releases/latest/download
sudo dnf install $base/mlang-0.1.0-1.x86_64.rpm $base/mango-0.1.0-1.x86_64.rpmDownload mlang-0.1.0-win64.msi from the releases page and run it. mango is
included and installed automatically with the toolchain.
After installing, verify:
mlangc --version
mango --version# Build the toolchain (frontend + tools build without LLVM; add
# -DMLANG_ENABLE_LLVM=ON for native codegen)
cmake --preset dev
cmake --build --preset dev
# Tokenize / parse a program with the compiler driver
./build/dev/compiler/mlangc --emit=tokens examples/hello.m
./build/dev/compiler/mlangc --emit=ast examples/hello.m
# Create and run a project (once mbuild/mango are wired to the backend)
mbuild new hello && cd hello
mbuild runThe full language and compiler design lives in
docs/design/ — 39 chapters covering everything
from the type system and IR to the memory model, concurrency, ABI, and the
roadmap. The formal grammar is in
docs/grammar/mlang.ebnf.
MLang is in early development. The design is complete and the compiler frontend (lexer, parser, AST, diagnostics) is functional; semantic analysis, the IR, and the LLVM backend are under active construction. See the roadmap and development phases.
MLang is distributed under the MIT License.