The surface-form file extension changes from .ailx to .ail. AILang's
authoring surface now uses the same .ail stem as its canonical JSON
form (.ail.json), giving the language a single coherent extension
family: .ail is the LLM-authored Form A, .ail.json is the canonical
JSON-AST Form B.
Scope (touched):
- 61 example renames examples/**/*.ailx → .ail (git mv)
- 1 rename experiments/.../rendered/ailx.md → ail.md
- 35 content-edited live-toolchain files (crates/, docs/DESIGN.md,
docs/roadmap.md, docs/PROSE_ROUNDTRIP.md, skills/, bench/reference/*.c,
experiment crates under experiments/.../{render,harness,master})
- Experiment-crate cohort rename Cohort::Ailx → Cohort::Ail,
Form::Ailx → Form::Ail, per_cohort/ailx → per_cohort/ail,
{form-only: ailx} → {form-only: ail}, ```ailx → ```ail
Out of scope (deliberately untouched, to preserve honest history):
- docs/journal-archive.md (content-frozen per CLAUDE.md)
- docs/journals/, docs/specs/, docs/plans/, bench/orchestrator-stats/
- experiments/.../runs/ (frozen LLM-output artefacts; models actually
saw .ailx — renaming would falsify the experimental record)
Verification: cargo build/test --workspace green; experiment crate
cargo test green; bench/check.py + compile_check.py + cross_lang.py
all 0-regressed; negative grep for ailx|Ailx|AILX outside the
out-of-scope paths returns zero matches.
Opens immediate follow-up: roadmap.md P2 todo `ail check`/build/run
accept .ail extension — after this rename, .ail is canonical
authoring surface but the CLI still produces a misleading JSON-parse
error on `ail check foo.ail`. That's the next iter.
Milestone "Cross-model authoring-form test" closed. Live IONOS run
against Qwen/Qwen3-Coder-Next executed at temperature=0, max-turns=5,
token-budget=500000. Raw dataset under runs/2026-05-12-df7531/:
RUN_STATUS=ok, scores.csv with 8 rows (4 tasks × 2 cohorts),
summary.md, plus 156 per-turn raw artefacts (request/response/program/
stderr/stdout) preserved for any future analysis.
Headline numbers:
- AILX cohort: 2/4 green, 1/4 first-attempt, ~95k prompt + ~2.6k completion
- JSON cohort: 1/4 green, 0/4 first-attempt, ~192k prompt + ~15k completion
- Only first-attempt success was AILX on t3_main_prints (~5 lines of
tagged s-expr vs ~23 lines of structured JSON for the JSON cohort's
turn-1 attempt that needed correction).
- Per spec, single subject + single deterministic run = data point,
not verdict.
DESIGN.md §"Decision 6: authoring surface" gains an "Empirical
addendum (2026-05-12)" subsection: 6-row metric table, illustrative
t3 contrast, explicit single-subject scope note pointing at the
roadmap follow-up entry for multi-subject expansion.
Roadmap: P2 entry "Cross-model authoring-form test" removed (this
journal is the convention's one-line mirror); P3 entry
"Multi-subject expansion (cross-model authoring-form follow-up)"
added with the run dir named as baseline.
Milestone artefacts span three iters (cma.1 master mini-spec +
renderer; cma.2 harness + tasks + reference solutions; cma.3 this
live run + DESIGN.md addendum + close).
Milestone-close audit found three drift items (architect) plus
two carry-on items; bench all-green.
Fixes (rt.tidy, boss-direct):
- 5th test parse_then_print_then_parse_is_idempotent_on_every_ailx_fixture
enforces Direction 2 of the Roundtrip Invariant directly. The
DESIGN.md enforcement list grows from four to five tests.
- docs/roadmap.md P1 'Round-trip completeness invariant' entry
retired with one-line journal mirror per roadmap convention.
- DESIGN.md wording sync: <16-hex> → <16-lowercase-hex> for the
Float-bits-hex spelling in the new section (matches §Data model).
Milestone closed clean; five workspace-wide tests anchor the
.ail.json ↔ .ailx bijection plus AST-variant coverage.
New top-level section '## Roundtrip Invariant' between Decision 11
and '## Mangling scheme'. States both directions of the .ail.json
↔ .ailx bijection, names Float-bits-hex encoding as the in-
invariant mechanism (not an exception), lists the four enforcement
tests by path, and explains why the property is top-level
(load-bearing on language identity, not on Decision 6's surface-
design rationale).
Decision 6 Constraint 2 rewritten as upward cross-reference to the
new section; the substantive content now lives at the anchor.
Direct boss edit (no planner/implement dispatch): spec Architecture
#1 fully specified the content, no design judgement deferred to
execution. The iter is a deterministic projection of the spec
onto DESIGN.md prose.
Milestone-23 close audit. Architect clean on substance; one
pre-existing DESIGN.md grammar stub (line 1692, dangling 'The
original' from 2026-05-10 design-md-consolidation) caught and
fixed.
Bencher localised the compile_check.py regression to H2 (the 5 new
polymorphic prelude Def::Fns iter 23.5 added — each carries forall
+ class constraint + match/not body, all typechecked on every
workspace check). H1 (linearity workspace-visibility extension +
contains_rigid_var) is negligible at today's 2-module workspace.
The regression is the feature's measured cost. Ratified per audit
skill (--update-baseline + journal entry). 0/24 metrics regressed
post-update.
Milestone 23 (Eq/Ord prelude) is closed.
Five polymorphic prelude free fns (ne/lt/le/gt/ge) plus three E2E
fixtures: positive composition over Int/Bool/Str, user-ADT with
user-written Eq/Ord on IntBox, and Float-NoInstance with a
Float-aware diagnostic addendum cross-referencing DESIGN.md §"Float
semantics".
Two checker-side fixes were needed alongside the prelude additions,
both symmetric to the iter 23.4-prep visibility fix:
- linearity::check_module_with_visible — workspace-aware callee-mode
resolution so a Borrow-mode user fn forwarding into a prelude poly
fn (e.g. `at_most x y = not (gt x y)`) doesn't false-fire
consume-while-borrowed.
- mono::collect_mono_targets — distinguish rigid forall vars from
unbound metavars; rigid-bearing free-fn targets skip (they get
re-collected with concrete subst when the enclosing fn itself
monomorphises). Without this, a polymorphic body calling another
polymorphic free fn produced a spurious __Unit specialisation
whose body referenced compare at Unit.
Roadmap split: shipped Eq/Ord half checked, Show + print-rewire half
remains pending behind the heap-Str ABI prerequisite. DESIGN.md
§"Prelude classes" amended.
One pre-existing fixture (test_22b1_missing_method) renamed its
class method ne → tne to avoid collision with the new prelude `ne`.
Bench: check.py + cross_lang.py exit 0; compile_check.py exits 1
with one sub-ms check_ms.local_rec_capture at +26% (tolerance 25%) —
prelude-growth-related noise-band fluctuation, ratifiable per spec
§248-249 and journal Concerns.
Restructure ailang-check/src/mono.rs::monomorphise_workspace into a
single specialiser over every Type::Forall-quantified Def::Fn, covering
both class-method residuals AND polymorphic free-fn call sites in one
fixpoint pass. Remove the codegen-time specialiser (lower_polymorphic_call,
module_polymorphic_fns, mono_queue, mono_emitted, emit_specialised_fn,
plus the now-dead helpers apply_subst_to_term, descriptor_for_subst,
type_descriptor) entirely. Codegen sees only monomorphic Def::Fns after
this iter — no polymorphic call sites, no codegen-time queue.
Architecture changes:
- MonoTarget: struct → enum with ClassMethod / FreeFn variants; dedup
keys are guaranteed-disjoint via 'class'/'free' first component.
- collect_mono_targets: new FreeFnCall channel through synth (cleaner
than the plan's separate-walker proposal — one less data flow,
substitution tracking comes 'for free' via fresh metavars +
post-synth subst.apply). Plan Step 4.4 (polymorphic_free_fns env
field) consequently obsolete.
- synthesise_mono_fn_for_free_fn: new free-fn entry point; substitutes
rigid vars in BOTH the type AND the body (body substitution required
because free-fn bodies carry inner Lams whose param_tys reference
outer Forall vars — adapted from plan's 'body unchanged' sketch).
- mono_symbol_n: N-ary extension of mono_symbol; bit-stable for the
single-type-var case (hash-stability pin Task 1 fires zero times
through all eight refactor tasks).
- rewrite_class_method_calls → rewrite_mono_calls; interleaved-slot
collector preserves the positional-cursor invariant across both
channels.
- workspace_has_typeclasses → workspace_has_specialisable_targets
(principled correctness; old predicate happened to already be true
for every user workspace because the prelude is auto-injected).
Codegen cleanup:
- Two call sites of lower_polymorphic_call deleted (codegen/src/lib.rs
lines ~1939-1945, ~1965-1973).
- lower_polymorphic_call body, module_polymorphic_fns field +
population + Emitter wiring, mono_queue / mono_emitted, drain loop,
emit_specialised_fn — all removed.
- is_static_callee collapsed to module_user_fns-only.
- subst.rs apply_subst_to_term + descriptor_for_subst removed; synth.rs
type_descriptor removed (all dead post-removal).
- ail emit-ir command pipeline gains lift_letrecs + monomorphise_workspace
pre-passes (pre-iter-23.4 the codegen-time poly path was masking
this dependency — emit-ir is now consistent with build).
- Net codegen reduction: -285 lines lib.rs, -93 lines subst.rs.
Tests:
- mono_hash_stability.rs (new): regression pin for six primitive Eq/Ord
mono-symbol body hashes; stayed bit-stable through all eight refactor
tasks.
- mono_unification.rs (new): six tests covering variant-key disjointness,
free-fn target emission, free-fn synthesis with rigid substitution,
rewrite walker on free fns, identity for poly-free-fn-only workspaces,
end-to-end cmp_max_smoke runtime correctness.
- typeclass_22b3.rs: three test sites updated to MonoTarget::ClassMethod
enum form.
- 73 e2e + 18 typeclass + 81 codegen tests all green workspace-wide.
DESIGN.md §'Monomorphisation (post-typecheck, pre-codegen)' amended:
two-arm fixpoint described, disjoint-keyed dedup, cursor-aligned
walker, removed codegen-time path.
Bench check (all exit 0, 112 metrics stable): bench/check.py +
compile_check.py + cross_lang.py.
Plan parent: docs/plans/2026-05-11-iter-23.4.md (fab1685).
Spec parent: docs/specs/2026-05-11-23-eq-ord-prelude.md (841d65d).
Per-iter journal documents two adapted deviations from the plan
(synth-channel vs separate walker; body substitution; emit-ir fix);
no spec defects.
Anthropic now reserves /plan as a UI command, so the Skill tool refuses to
dispatch it. Rename the project's plan skill to planner, update the symlink
under .claude/skills/, and adjust references in CLAUDE.md, DESIGN.md,
skills/README.md, and the cross-references between brainstorm / implement /
audit / fieldtest / fieldtester. Plan files themselves (docs/plans/*.md)
keep their name — only the skill ID changes.
Hypothesis-driven measurement of "did monomorphisation actually
buy us performance?" on a 100M-iter LCG hot loop, AILang mono'd
code vs. four C reference variants (direct-inlinable, direct-
noinline, indirect-monomorphic, indirect-polymorphic). Zen 3,
clang -O2, median-of-15.
Headline: H1 supported, but the mechanism is inlining, not
dispatch shape. AILang mono = hand-C direct (1.000x). Indirect-
monomorphic = direct-noinline (1.000x) — saturating branch
predictor makes the indirect-call cost vanish on this hardware.
Inlining is the actual 3.31x win; polymorphic indirect adds
another 21% predictor-miss penalty.
DESIGN.md Decision 11 gains a rationale paragraph reframing mono
as inlining-enabler rather than indirect-call-eliminator, with
explicit pointer to the bench. JOURNAL entry records the full
methodology, ratios, limitations, and the side-effect mono-pass
env.globals-seeding bug surfaced while building the AILang fixture
(separate RED-first debug iter to follow).
Adds DESIGN.md "Feature-acceptance criterion" as a top-level section:
a feature ships only if (1) an LLM author naturally produces code
that uses it, and (2) it measurably improves correctness or removes
redundancy. Aesthetic appeal and human ergonomics do not count.
Mirrored in CLAUDE.md as "Feature acceptance: LLM utility", paired
with the existing "Design rationale != implementation effort". The
two together narrow valid feature rationales to one thing: what the
LLM author gets out of the feature.
Trigger: the typeclass-design conversation around 22a. Rule was
implicit in many past decisions (Decision 1's JSON-over-text choice,
Decision 10's "what LLMs are good at" reasoning) but never stated
as a feature-gate. Codifying it now means future feature proposals
get evaluated against an articulated criterion instead of being
re-derived each time.
Documentation-only; no Rust, schema, or bench changes. Test state
288/0/3 unchanged.
Three drift items from ailang-architect, plus one false-positive
surfaced during verification:
1. DESIGN.md silent on closure-pair 4.14x finding (21'b).
Decision-10 ratified: "Workload scope of the 1.3x target"
paragraph scopes the retirement gate to linear/tree/poly-ADT
workloads; closure-pair carve-out documented as
representational cost (closure cell + env struct = 2 allocs
per step) until a slab/pool answer ships.
2. bench/compile_check.py corpus drift. Three fixtures added
(bench_compute_intsum, bench_compute_collatz,
bench_list_sum_explicit), re-baselined. Now 12 fixtures x
2 ops = 24 compile-time metrics.
3. baseline.json convention not codified. Note field gains
"max-of-distribution gets wider band than percentile"
convention discovered in 21'd.
4. (verification finding) bench_compute_intsum cross_lang
tolerances at 15%/12% fire on subprocess-spawn jitter for
sub-millisecond fixtures. Widened to 35% across all five
intsum metrics; convention recorded in baseline_cross_lang
note field (sub-ms fixtures need looser bands).
All three bench gates re-run sequentially after edits:
bench/check.py — 63 metrics; 63 stable
bench/compile_check.py — 24 metrics; 24 stable
bench/cross_lang.py — 25 metrics; 25 stable
Total: 112 metrics under regression coverage, all green.
288 tests passing, 3 ignored. No Rust changes.
The dual-allocator policy from 2026-05-08 made Boehm the CLI default
"for general workloads", with rc selected explicitly for real-time-
sensitive code. That asymmetry contradicted Decision 10: rc + uniqueness
inference is the canonical memory model AILang's typechecker enforces,
and the CLI was teaching the opposite mental model to users and prompt-
fed LLMs.
This iter flips the asymmetry without removing Boehm:
- main.rs: default_value gc -> rc for build/run; help text rewritten
so rc is the canonical path and gc is the parity oracle.
- DESIGN.md Decision 9 retitled "RC canonical, Boehm parity oracle"
and rewritten end-to-end. Migration plan step 6 updated to a
two-step retirement (default-flip done, full removal gated).
- DESIGN.md pipeline diagram: rc-first, gc-as-oracle.
- JOURNAL: 2026-05-09 entry recording the call, what shipped,
the bug the flip surfaced, the gating condition for full
Boehm removal.
Bug surfaced by the flip and fixed in the same iter:
codegen/drop.rs build_pair_drop_fn emitted `getelementptr inbounds
{{ ptr, ptr }}, ...` via push_str (not format!), so the doubled
braces leaked verbatim into the IR. LLVM parsed it as a struct-of-
struct, the GEP referenced a non-existent field, and clang failed.
Invisible under the old gc default (no per-type drop fns) and
invisible to the 8 explicit _with_alloc("rc") tests (none of them
escaped a closure-with-captures). Caught immediately by two corpus
tests once rc became the baseline: closure_captures_let_n,
local_rec_as_value_capture_demo. Fix: single braces. Tests stay
as the regression guard.
The episode is the canonical justification for keeping the GC arm
as a parity oracle for now — a months-old codegen bug found by
flipping the baseline column.
288 passed / 0 failed / 3 ignored, unchanged.
Architect drift review after Family 20 surfaced four items; (1) and
(2) are doc drift fixed here, (3) and (4) are recorded as acceptable.
DESIGN.md changes:
- Data model section rewritten from "Data model (MVP)" claiming
only fn/const exist to "Data model" reflecting all three Def
kinds. Added the missing schema fields the architect named:
`tail` flag on app/do, the `seq` / `clone` / `reuse-as` / `letrec`
terms, `paramModes` / `retMode` on Type::Fn, `suppress` on FnDef,
`drop-iterative` on TypeDef, `args` on Type::Con, `vars` on
TypeDef. Each additive field's hash-stable serialisation is
called out once at the top so individual mentions stay terse.
`Suppress`, `ParamMode`, `Literal`, `Pattern` get their own
sub-blocks.
- Pipeline diagram now shows `--alloc=gc` (links libgc;
transitional) and `--alloc=rc` (emits ailang_rc_inc / _dec;
canonical) as two backends sharing the same MIR.
- Ecosystem inventory gained a "Surface forms" bullet for
ailang-surface (Iter 14c, lossless Form-A printer/parser) and
ailang-prose (Family 20, lossy Form-B projection). CLI bullet
now lists parse, render, prose, merge-prose.
JOURNAL entry records the architect findings, the resolutions for
items (1) and (2), and the acceptable-drift status of (3)
FnDef::synthetic factor-out (defer to next schema-additive
FnDef field) and (4) linearity.rs spurious warning (not
corpus-triggered).
Pure documentation iter — no code changes. 288 workspace tests
unchanged and green.
Brummel