mut/var/assign removed from AILang entirely and atomically. Deleted:
Term::Mut/Term::Assign/struct MutVar; the three Form-A keywords +
parse_mut/parse_assign + grammar EBNF; the 4 mut CheckError variants;
the mut_scope_stack synth threading (param dropped from synth + every
internal/external/test caller); the two lower_term arms; and every
exhaustive no-_ Term::Mut/Term::Assign match arm across 17 source
files — cut in lockstep with DESIGN.md, fixtures, the drift trio,
carve-out and roadmap so the schema is honest at every commit. No
catch-all wildcard introduced (verified). loop/recur + let/if are
the surviving forms.
The shared codegen alloca machinery survives (loop reuses it):
mut_var_allocas renamed binder_allocas (representation-only, loop
codegen byte-identical) and the shared Term::Lam escape guard
simplified to !loop_stack.is_empty() with the loop half
(LoopBinderCapturedByLambda) byte-equivalent. Feature-acceptance
applied inverted: the removed feature fails clause 2 (redundant)
and clause 3 (IS the iterated-mutable-state bug class).
Behaviour preservation is executable: mut_counter/mut_sum_floats
still print 55 after the faithful let/if rewrite. The removal is
made executable by the new mut_removed_pin.rs (4 must-fail pins).
Independent verification: cargo test --workspace 605/0, zero
residual mut symbols in any crate source, loop/recur non-regression
all green (55 / 500000500000 / infinite-compiles / the
lambda_capturing_loop_binder pin), roundtrip_cli PASS.
One DONE_WITH_CONCERNS: a 4th recurrence of the recon-undercount
class (in-source mod tests + a drift-pin fn + 5 orphaned mut
.ail.json carve-outs + a non-enumerated E0599); all resolved within
implementer remit, no behaviour change. Milestone-close audit then
fieldtest remain.
spec docs/specs/2026-05-18-remove-mut-var-assign.md (grounding PASS)
plan docs/plans/remove-mut-var-assign.1.md
First of three iterations of the standalone loop/recur milestone
(spec 97c1ed1). loop/recur become real parseable / printable /
round-trippable / hash-stable strictly-additive AST nodes across
every no-wildcard exhaustive Term match in all six crates, plus
parse/print, prose arms, DESIGN.md + form_a.md schema blocks,
drift/coverage/hash anchors, and the spec's worked sum_to program
as a green round-trip fixture. NO typecheck semantics and NO real
codegen this iter by design: synth and lower_term are stubbed
CheckError::Internal / CodegenError::Internal exactly as mut.1
(real typecheck = iter 2, real loop-header/phi/back-edge = iter 3).
Two binding Boss design calls recorded in the plan header and the
journal: (1) verify_tail_positions "byte-unchanged" = its tail-app
verification role is unchanged, not its source — it is an
exhaustive no-wildcard match so two descent-only arms are
mandatory; acceptance evidence is the tail-app non-regression test.
(2) codegen is in iter-1 scope as stubs/pass-throughs because the
workspace must compile for cargo test --workspace.
Three plan-pseudo-vs-reality substitutions (serde Type::Con
literal, bare Int -> (con Int), unqualified LoopBinder) and one
recon-undercount integration-test site, all intent-preserving and
journalled. Boss forward-fix folded in: the committed specs
themselves wrote bare Int in the loop-binder snippets (parses as
Type::Var) — corrected the three headline snippets to (con Int) for
doc-honesty (no design/schema change).
cargo test --workspace 600 -> 608 / 0 red (Boss-reran
independently); iter13a + new loop_recur hash pins green.
One forward iteration; main never rewound. 1ff7e81 (the pre-9973546
commit) is the per-region byte oracle — every reverted source/test
file is byte-identical to it; crates/ailang-check/src/lib.rs fully so.
Root cause being corrected: the Iteration-discipline milestone was an
over-escalation of fieldtest finding F1 (a [friction] item whose own
minimal recommendation was a DESIGN.md note). Its totality dichotomy
made the maximally-LLM-natural build(d:Int)=Node(1,build(d-1),
build(d-1)) inexpressible (it.3 BLOCKED); the only in-thesis escape
(A1/it.2b) conceded the language's first documented-unenforced
totality precondition — a purity-pillar dilution the user rejected in
favour of a full revert + rebuild.
Removed: Term::Loop/Term::Recur/LoopBinder; the verify_structural_
recursion guardedness pass + term_contains_loop + Diverge-injection +
the transitively-it.2 module_fns plumbing; the five Recur*/
NonStructuralRecursion CheckError variants (+ code() + the 3 dedicated
ctx() arms); the it.1 codegen loop-header/phi/back-edge + parallel
block_terminated setter; all Loop/Recur walker arms; 16 it.1/it.2
fixtures; 2 pin files; bench/it3-oracle/. Restored: 2 RC fixtures to
1ff7e81 content.
Surgically kept (not in 1ff7e81, landed with the milestone but
independently sound): feature-acceptance clause 3 in DESIGN.md and
skills/brainstorm/SKILL.md, with its worked example de-claimed from
"shipped" to hypothetical-illustration form; the F3 P2 todo.
bench/orchestrator-stats/2026-05-15-iter-it.{1,2,3}.json kept as
historical record (like journals/plans).
Sole net addition: an honest F1/F4 documented-idiom note in DESIGN.md
(the tail-recursive accumulator fallback; examples/mut_counter.ail),
guarded by a doc-presence test — "a documentation note is not a
reshape", asserts nothing at the typecheck level.
Roadmap: the Iteration-discipline block + blocking-fork section
removed; the genuine total-Int-recursion ambition preserved as a
deferred P2 milestone sequenced behind a future Nat/refinement-types
milestone (not abandoned — correctly sequenced after the type
machinery it needs). 2026-05-15-iteration-discipline.md carries a
superseded header; it.1/it.2/it.3 journals + plans stay as history.
Correctness gate PRISTINE: 164 surviving 1ff7e81-era fixtures
ail check/ail run byte-identical to pre-milestone behaviour (verified
against a 1ff7e81 worktree reference compiler, zero drift);
cargo test --workspace 600/0; zero residual it.1/it.2 production
surface.
Spec docs/specs/2026-05-16-iteration-discipline-revert.md (b3853bf),
plan docs/plans/2026-05-16-iter-revert.md (abf0013).
Iteration-discipline milestone, 1 of 3. Adds named loop + recur as
strictly-additive first-class AST nodes: parse/print/prose/serde/
round-trip/schema lockstep, typecheck (binder typing + recur
arity/type unification via loop_stack threaded as mut.2's
mut_scope_stack; recur-tail-position via verify_loop_body), codegen
(loop-header + one phi per binder; recur back-edge br with a NEW
parallel block_terminated setter; lambda-boundary loop_frames
save/restore). Four Recur* CheckError variants. Strictly additive:
zero deletions touch tail-app/tail-do or the seven existing
block_terminated sites — this is what makes the destructive it.3
safe. recur synth = fresh metavar (resolves the plan's flagged
Type::unit() risk). loop_counter->55, loop_in_lambda->49, four
negatives fire, tail-app byte-identical, cargo test --workspace
green. Spec fda9b78, plan 7381a42.
First iteration of the mut-local milestone (foundation step on the
Stateful-islands roadmap path). Lands the schema + surface tier:
Term::Mut, Term::Assign, and the nested MutVar struct become
first-class AST nodes that round-trip cleanly through Form A.
Typecheck and codegen recognition are deferred to mut.2 and mut.3
per the spec's out-of-iteration boundary; reaching either dispatch
entry point with these variants produces CheckError::Internal /
CodegenError::Internal with a 'deferred to iter mut.{2,3}' message.
Concretely:
- crates/ailang-core/src/ast.rs: two new Term variants behind
#[serde(tag = 't')]; pub struct MutVar { name, ty, init } adjacent
to Arm. Two canonical-bytes pin tests for the explicit-empty-vars
serialisation and the assign round-trip.
- ~25 substantive Term-walker arms across ailang-core/desugar,
ailang-core/workspace, ailang-check (lib + lift + linearity + mono
+ pre_desugar_validation + reuse_shape + uniqueness),
ailang-codegen (escape + lambda + lib), ailang-prose, and
crates/ail/src/main.rs. Universal policy: substantive recurse-into-
children at every site; only the two dispatch entry points
(synth in ailang-check, lower_term in ailang-codegen) stub with
Internal-error. One test-side walker arm in
crates/ail/tests/codegen_import_map_fallback_pin.rs not
enumerated by the plan was added as well (defensive recursion).
- ailang-surface: parse_mut + parse_assign helpers; Term::Mut
body desugared from a flat statement sequence into a right-folded
Term::Seq chain inside the JSON-AST. Print arms in print.rs match
the parser convention. EBNF prologue + crates/ailang-core/specs/
form_a.md productions updated. Four new parser pin tests cover
the empty-mut, single-var, body-required, and vars-only-no-body
cases.
- Drift + coverage tests extended: design_schema_drift.rs adds two
exemplars + match arms; schema_coverage.rs adds two VariantTag
entries + EXPECTED_VARIANTS + visit_term arms; spec_drift.rs adds
two exemplars + match arms. DESIGN.md §'Term (expression)' gets
jsonc-blocked schemas for the two new variants.
- examples/mut.ail: six-fn round-trip fixture exercising empty mut,
single-var, two-var, nested-shadow, and the four supported scalar
return types (Int, Float, Bool, Unit). The round_trip auto-glob
and schema_coverage corpus walker both pick it up.
Plan deviation: the plan named lib.rs:2572 as the typecheck
dispatch stub site, but that line is actually verify_tail_positions
(substantive walker). The real dispatch is synth (3403-area, stub
at 3489); the orchestrator routed correctly.
Tests: 564 → 579 green; cargo build green; round-trip green for
the new fixture; all drift + coverage tests green.
Journal: docs/journals/2026-05-15-iter-mut.1.md.
Refs: docs/specs/2026-05-15-mut-local.md, docs/plans/2026-05-15-iter-mut.1.md.
Single iter shipping the post-milestone-24 follow-up named in
docs/specs/2026-05-14-retire-per-type-print-effects.md. After this
iter the only surviving direct-output effect-op is `io/print_str`;
all per-type print primitives are replaced by the polymorphic
`print` helper (prelude, iter 24.3).
Components:
- 92 examples/*.ail fixtures migrated (do io/print_<T> x) →
(app print x); 6 .prose.txt snapshots regenerated via `ail prose`.
- Four-site lockstep compiler deletion: crates/ailang-check/src/builtins.rs
(3 effect_ops.insert blocks + 3 list() rows + the
install_io_print_float_signature test + module + EffectOpSig
doc-comments); crates/ailang-codegen/src/lib.rs lower_app
(3 arms + lowers_io_print_float test); crates/ailang-codegen/src/synth.rs
builtin_effect_op_ret match-arm pattern. Dead `intern_string`
helper removed as a follow-up.
- Five incidental test-body migrations (ailang-check x2, ailang-core
spec_drift + design_schema_drift, ailang-surface/src/lex.rs,
ailang-prose/src/lib.rs round-trip test).
- Cat B test-harness patch: six IR-shape tests in
crates/ail/tests/e2e.rs gained a monomorphise_workspace call
before lower_workspace_with_alloc so they follow the same
pipeline as `ail build` (the home-rolled desugar+lift loop
stayed because mono's precondition is "already lifted"; mono
inserts after lift).
- Six doc-comment touch-ups (lex.rs module doc, parse.rs
diagnostic example, ail/src/main.rs x2, runtime/str.c %g anchor,
crates/ailang-core/specs/form_a.md surface-spec example).
- DESIGN.md seven-site sweep (Decision 11 example, Polymorphic
print past-tense, Heap-Str output sentence, effect-op
invocation comment, Float NaN paragraph re-anchored on
float_to_str, two "What is supported" lists).
- Three E2E test-comment polish + four IR-snapshot refresh + one
canonical-hash pin update (plan-unanticipated downstream
consequences of the corpus migration).
- bench/{check,compile_check,cross_lang}.py: all exit 0; no
ratification needed.
- Roadmap entry struck through; per-iter journal at
docs/journals/2026-05-14-iter-rpe.1.md.
Tests 564/0/3. cargo clippy and cargo doc: zero warnings.
Two upstream codegen bugs surfaced during the first BLOCKED
attempt and were fixed in separate iters before this retry:
- 1fb225e bugfix: mono cursor misalignment at poly-free-fn Var
with class-constrained Forall.
- feb9413 bugfix: print leak — propagate ret_mode through rigid
substitution + prelude Show.show ret_mode.
Known debt (carried forward for next /audit):
- Emitter.strings field is functionally dead post-iter (orphan
after intern_string removal); cycles over empty map harmlessly.
Adds Def::Class(ClassDef) and Def::Instance(InstanceDef) variants per
Decision 11 §"Form-A schema". All optional fields (superclass, doc,
default body) carry skip_serializing_if so canonical-JSON bytes of
pre-22b fixtures stay bit-identical.
Downstream match-on-Def sites are extended with explicit Class/Instance
arms. Behaviour for 22b.1 is placeholder (skip in typecheck/codegen,
one-line summary in pretty/manifest, placeholder marker in prose/print)
with TODO comments naming the deferred sub-iters (22b.2 typecheck,
22b.3 codegen, 22b.4 prose-projection arms).
Closes a design hole shipped in 20d: the merge-prose prompt instructed
the LLM to emit JSON-AST and gave a 12-line schema-essentials reminder.
JSON-AST is the canonical hashable artefact, not a writing surface; the
reminder was not a language spec. Foreign LLMs had no realistic shot.
20f makes two coupled changes:
1) The LLM now emits Form-A (the canonical authoring surface fixed by
Decision 6). merge-prose loads the original via ailang_core::load_module
and re-renders via ailang_surface::print before embedding (round-trip
is a gating contract on the surface crate, so this is lossless). The
user runs `ail parse foo.new.ailx` to recover JSON, then `ail check`.
2) crates/ailang-core/specs/form_a.md is the complete LLM-targeted
Form-A specification — grammar, every term/pattern/type/def keyword,
schema invariants, pitfall catalogue, four few-shot modules from
examples/*.ailx. Exported as ailang_core::FORM_A_SPEC via include_str!
and embedded verbatim in every merge-prose prompt.
Drift detection in crates/ailang-core/tests/spec_drift.rs: every variant
of Term, Pattern, Type, Def, Literal is reached via exhaustive `match`.
The arms are not the assertion — adding a new variant without updating
the match is a compile error before the test runs. Once matched, an
anchor string is asserted to appear in FORM_A_SPEC. 8 tests, all green.
The hand-written + mechanical-drift-test combo addresses the user's
"distance to code is too big" concern about a docs-only spec. Generator
overkill rejected: structural drift is mechanically caught, but prose
explanation, schema-invariant catalogue, pitfall list, and few-shot
corpus cannot be emitted from AST shape alone.
Tests:
- ailang-core: +8 spec_drift tests; existing 12 unchanged
- ail unit (3): rewritten in lockstep — assert (own T)/(effects IO)
landmarks, FORM-A SPECIFICATION header, FORM_A_SPEC body verbatim
- ail e2e merge_prose_prints_framed_prompt: rewritten — assert
`(module foo` + `FORM-A SPECIFICATION` instead of `ailang/v0`
- Workspace: all green
Richer integration paths (LLM tool-use, MCP server, LSP) were named
in the design discussion and deferred per "kiss". All three layer
additively on the static-prompt path; static prompt remains the
lowest-common-denominator fallback.
Brummel