Getting Started

This guide walks you through building the Zephyr compiler and VM, setting up the editor extension, and running your first script.

Installation and Build

Build cross-platform via CMake (requires a C++20 compiler; no external dependencies):

git clone https://github.com/29thnight/Zephyr.git
cd Zephyr
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release

On Windows, you can also open Zephyr.sln in Visual Studio 18 and build from there.

Add the directory containing the built binaries to your system PATH to use the zephyr CLI globally.

Editor Setup (VS Code)

The official VS Code extension provides syntax highlighting, auto-completion, hover type inference, go-to-definition, and inline diagnostics.

cd editors/vscode-zephyr
npm install
npm run package
code --install-extension zephyr-*.vsix

Opening any .zph file automatically starts the built-in language server (zephyr lsp) in the background.

CLI Commands

zephyr run

Compile and execute a script immediately. Append --profile to emit a sampling trace file.

zephyr check

Run only the lexer, parser, and type-checker (semacheck) without executing the VM — useful for CI validation.

zephyr repl / dump

Start an interactive session with repl, or disassemble a script into opcodes with dump-bytecode.

zephyr lsp / dap

Host the standard language server (LSP) and debug adapter (DAP) in the background for editor integration.

For profiling, add the --profile flag:

zephyr run --profile mygame.zph
# Writes zephyr_profile.json with sampling data.

Hello World

Write a minimal script and run it:

// hello.zph
fn main() -> void {
    print("Hello, World!");
}

zephyr run hello.zph
# Output: Hello, World!

A More Complete Example

Structs and traits in action:

struct Vec2 {
    x: float,
    y: float,
}

trait Printable {
    fn display(self) -> void;
}

impl Printable for Vec2 {
    fn display(self) -> void {
        print(f"Vec2({self.x}, {self.y})");
    }
}

fn main() -> void {
    let v = Vec2 { x: 1.0, y: 2.5 };
    v.display();
}

Vec2(1, 2.5)