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blue_lang_runtime/
lib.rs

1//! The blue runtime — **one** definition of what a blue program runs against.
2//!
3//! Before this crate existed, every consumer hand-rolled its own
4//! `Interpreter::new()` + `install_primitives(...)` pair — three of them, in
5//! three crates — and they had silently drifted: none of them loaded the Lisp
6//! stdlib. So `6 % 3` lowered correctly to `(mod 6 3)`, `mod` was genuinely
7//! defined, and the program still died with `unbound symbol: mod`, because
8//! the definition lived in a stdlib nobody loaded.
9//!
10//! That is the duplication tax in its usual shape: the bug is not in any one
11//! copy, it is in there *being* copies. One function now owns the answer.
12//!
13//! ## Layers
14//!
15//! A blue interpreter is built in two layers, and both are required:
16//!
17//! 1. **Rust primitives** — arithmetic, comparison, list ops, I/O.
18//! 2. **The full tatara stdlib** — primitives, higher-order functions
19//!    (`map`/`filter`/`fold`), maps, channels, fibers, type-check, and
20//!    everything tatara defines in tatara-lisp itself
21//!    (`mod`, `rem`, `first`, `inc`, `even?`, the actor and transducer
22//!    helpers, …). Loading it is not optional garnish: blue's own operator
23//!    lowering depends on it.
24//! 3. **blue's own core** ([`stdlib`]) — strings and number conversion, which
25//!    tatara-lisp does not have in any form. A Ruby-surface language without
26//!    `length` or `upcase` is not usable, and the semantics are Ruby's
27//!    (characters, not bytes), which is why they are blue's and not the
28//!    substrate's.
29//! 4. **JSON** ([`json`]) and **cryptography** ([`crypto`]) — pure
30//!    computation, installed unconditionally, so the wasm consumer keeps them.
31//! 5. **The host layer** (`sys`, behind the `sys` feature) — every name in it
32//!    is a host import.
33//! 6. **Processes** ([`attach_node`]) — `spawn`, `send`, `receive` and the
34//!    rest of `blue_lang_proc::node`'s words, bound to a node of the
35//!    interpreter's own, so the program is that node's root process.
36
37pub mod alloc;
38pub mod crypto;
39pub mod docs;
40pub mod domain;
41pub mod erase;
42pub mod errors;
43pub mod hosted;
44pub mod inputs;
45pub mod json;
46pub mod literal;
47pub mod messages;
48#[cfg(feature = "sys")]
49pub mod net;
50pub mod nix;
51pub mod observe;
52pub mod pipeline;
53pub mod project_rules;
54pub mod session;
55pub mod stdlib;
56#[cfg(feature = "sys")]
57pub mod sys;
58pub mod uses;
59
60pub use erase::{erase_types, to_sexps};
61pub use inputs::{declarations, install_input_primitives, Declaration, InputError, Inputs};
62pub use pipeline::{
63    parse, parse_tree_with_depth, parse_with_depth, run, run_with_inputs, Run, RunError,
64};
65pub use stdlib::install_blue_stdlib;
66
67use tatara_lisp_eval::{install_full_stdlib_with, Interpreter};
68
69/// Build an interpreter with the complete blue runtime installed.
70///
71/// This is the *only* sanctioned way to obtain one. A caller that builds an
72/// `Interpreter` directly gets a partial runtime, and the failure shows up as
73/// an unbound symbol at the far end of a program.
74pub fn interpreter<H: 'static>(host: &mut H) -> Interpreter<H> {
75    let mut interp = Interpreter::new();
76    // The FULL substrate, not just `install_primitives`.
77    //
78    // blue called `install_primitives` + `install_lisp_stdlib_with` and got
79    // neither `install_hof` nor `install_map` — so `map`, `filter`, `fold` and
80    // every map literal were UNBOUND SYMBOLS. A language with no higher-order
81    // functions, in a workspace whose whole surface is Ruby's.
82    //
83    // Same shape as the stdlib gap this crate was created to fix: the substrate
84    // has layers, and naming them one at a time is how one gets missed. Call
85    // the composed installer.
86    install_full_stdlib_with(&mut interp, host);
87    // Layer 3: blue's own core — strings and number conversion, which
88    // tatara-lisp does not carry at all. See `stdlib` for why the
89    // character-counting semantics are blue's rather than the substrate's.
90    stdlib::install_blue_stdlib(&mut interp);
91    // Layer 4: blue's JSON surface — parse, stringify, read. Pure
92    // computation, no host imports, so it is installed unconditionally; the
93    // `wasm32-unknown-unknown` consumer keeps it. See `json` for why objects
94    // arrive as alists rather than Maps.
95    json::install_json_stdlib(&mut interp);
96    // Layer 4b: cryptography — BLAKE3 and Ed25519. Pure for the same reason
97    // JSON is: a deterministic function of its arguments, with the keypair's
98    // seed supplied by the caller rather than drawn from an entropy source,
99    // so it lowers to no import and the wasm consumer keeps it. See `crypto`.
100    crypto::install_crypto_stdlib(&mut interp);
101    nix::install_nix_stdlib(&mut interp);
102    // Layer 5: the host-side system surface — process, filesystem, env,
103    // clock, network. Feature-gated: every sys primitive is a host import, so the
104    // wasm consumer (which builds with `sys` OFF) keeps its zero-host-import
105    // surface by construction. Only the CLI turns it on.
106    #[cfg(feature = "sys")]
107    sys::install_sys_stdlib(&mut interp);
108    // Layer 6: processes. Bound here so every name oracle built from this
109    // interpreter (the check stage, the LSP, `blue reference`) knows them.
110    attach_node(&mut interp);
111    // Last, so installing the stdlib is not metered against the program.
112    apply_execution_bounds(&mut interp);
113    interp
114}
115
116/// Give `interp` a process node of its own: its program becomes the node's
117/// root, and `spawn` starts processes in this node and no other.
118///
119/// [`interpreter_hostless`] calls it on every fork, so two programs never
120/// share processes. A door that forks an interpreter per unit of work (a test
121/// per fork) calls it on each fork for the same reason.
122pub fn attach_node<H: 'static>(interp: &mut Interpreter<H>) {
123    blue_lang_proc::install(interp, blue_lang_proc::Node::new(node_config()));
124}
125
126/// [`attach_node`] for a program that runs under `frame`: every process it
127/// starts is held to the same frame, so a host name the program may not call
128/// is refused in its children too. Without this a spawned child would run on
129/// the full runtime and a frame would be one `spawn` away from meaningless.
130pub fn attach_node_in_frame<H: 'static>(interp: &mut Interpreter<H>, frame: &blue_lang_waku::Waku) {
131    let mut config = node_config();
132    let refused: Vec<(&'static str, &'static str)> = blue_lang_waku::Capability::host_effects()
133        .into_iter()
134        .filter(|cap| !frame.reach.grants(*cap))
135        .flat_map(|cap| cap.names().into_iter().map(move |n| (n, cap.label())))
136        .collect();
137    config.child = std::sync::Arc::new(move || {
138        let mut child = child_interpreter();
139        for (name, label) in &refused {
140            if child.lookup_global(name).is_none() {
141                continue;
142            }
143            let name: &'static str = name;
144            let label: &'static str = label;
145            child.register_fn(name, tatara_lisp_eval::ffi::Arity::Any, move |_: &[tatara_lisp_eval::Value], _: &mut (), span| {
146                Err(tatara_lisp_eval::EvalError::native_fn(
147                    name,
148                    format!("refused: `{name}` reaches the host ({label}), which this process's frame does not grant"),
149                    span,
150                ))
151            });
152        }
153        child
154    });
155    blue_lang_proc::install(interp, blue_lang_proc::Node::new(config));
156}
157
158/// The node every interpreter's processes run under: the execution bounds
159/// per incarnation, a scheduling quantum, and the host's clock when there is
160/// a host (a node with no host has a virtual clock: time passes only when
161/// every process waits).
162fn node_config() -> blue_lang_proc::NodeConfig {
163    let b = execution_bounds();
164    let mut config = blue_lang_proc::NodeConfig::new(std::sync::Arc::new(child_interpreter));
165    config.budget = tatara_lisp_eval::vm::Budget {
166        fuel: b.max_steps,
167        max_depth: Some(b.max_call_depth),
168        quantum: Some(blue_lang_proc::node::DEFAULT_QUANTUM),
169    };
170    config.clock = if cfg!(feature = "sys") {
171        blue_lang_proc::ClockKind::Real
172    } else {
173        blue_lang_proc::ClockKind::Virtual
174    };
175    config
176}
177
178/// A fresh interpreter for a child process: the hostless base, forked. The
179/// node adds its child words to it.
180fn child_interpreter() -> Interpreter<()> {
181    let mut interp = match HOSTLESS_BASE.lock() {
182        Ok(base) => base.fork(),
183        Err(_) => interpreter(&mut ()),
184    };
185    apply_execution_bounds(&mut interp);
186    interp
187}
188
189/// The execution bounds every interpreter this crate builds runs under.
190static EXECUTION_BOUNDS: std::sync::OnceLock<ExecutionBounds> = std::sync::OnceLock::new();
191
192/// How much a blue program may do before it is refused: nested calls and
193/// evaluation steps.
194///
195/// Both are BOUNDS in the sense `blue-lang-cli`'s `config` module admits: a
196/// terminating program under bounds above its cost returns the same value, and
197/// one that exceeds either is refused with a catchable `depth-exceeded` or
198/// `fuel-exhausted` error naming the limit and the function — never a process
199/// abort, which is what exceeding the host stack was before tatara-lisp-eval
200/// 0.3.63. The walker and the VM run under the same bounds and refuse with the
201/// same message.
202#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
203pub struct ExecutionBounds {
204    /// Nested (non-tail) calls alive at once. Tail calls do not count.
205    pub max_call_depth: usize,
206    /// Evaluation steps per run; `None` is unbounded.
207    pub max_steps: Option<usize>,
208}
209
210impl ExecutionBounds {
211    /// Depth at tatara-lisp-eval's `DEFAULT_MAX_DEPTH`, steps unbounded.
212    ///
213    /// The two defaults differ for one reason: whether a program that works
214    /// today keeps working. A recursion past 100k frames never worked — it
215    /// aborted the process — so bounding depth removes no behaviour. A run
216    /// longer than any finite step count did work (simulations, tools on
217    /// nodes), so a default step bound would remove it; for a few hours of
218    /// 2026-09-29 blue shipped 50M (~3 s) and did exactly that. A host that
219    /// runs code it did not write, or a test that must see a runaway end,
220    /// sets `max_steps` itself.
221    pub const DEFAULT: Self = Self {
222        max_call_depth: tatara_lisp_eval::vm::DEFAULT_MAX_DEPTH,
223        max_steps: None,
224    };
225}
226
227/// Name the bounds for this process. The CLI calls this once with the resolved
228/// `BlueConfig`, before any interpreter is built; an embedder that never calls
229/// it runs under [`ExecutionBounds::DEFAULT`]. Only the first call counts,
230/// like `sys::set_program_args`.
231pub fn set_execution_bounds(bounds: ExecutionBounds) {
232    let _ = EXECUTION_BOUNDS.set(bounds);
233}
234
235/// The bounds interpreters are built with.
236#[must_use]
237pub fn execution_bounds() -> ExecutionBounds {
238    EXECUTION_BOUNDS
239        .get()
240        .copied()
241        .unwrap_or(ExecutionBounds::DEFAULT)
242}
243
244fn apply_execution_bounds<H: 'static>(interp: &mut Interpreter<H>) {
245    let b = execution_bounds();
246    // No quantum, so the tree-walker refuses nothing of this budget.
247    let _ = interp.set_budget(tatara_lisp_eval::vm::Budget {
248        fuel: b.max_steps,
249        max_depth: Some(b.max_call_depth),
250        quantum: None,
251    });
252}
253
254/// The prebuilt hostless substrate, built once per process.
255///
256/// **Measured 2026-08-01, and this is the entire reason the fork exists.**
257/// Profiling a trivial blue program found the run dominated by ONE thing:
258///
259/// ```text
260/// parse                     9.6 µs
261/// check                     1.6 µs
262/// interpreter_hostless()  5 820 µs   <- 98.4% of the run
263/// ```
264///
265/// Splitting that further: `Interpreter::new()` is 24 µs and
266/// `install_full_stdlib_with` is the rest — the stdlib was being rebuilt from
267/// scratch on every single `run()`, and blue's whole surface (`map`, `filter`,
268/// string ops) lives in it, so no program could avoid the cost.
269///
270/// `fork` already existed upstream for exactly this, and blue simply was not
271/// using it. tatara-lisp-eval's own `fork_cost.rs` opens with *"cheapness is
272/// the entire reason it exists"* — the capability was built, documented and
273/// guarded, and the consumer kept paying full price beside it.
274///
275/// | | per call |
276/// |---|---|
277/// | rebuild (`Interpreter::new` + `install_full_stdlib_with`) | **9.03 ms** |
278/// | `fork()` of a prebuilt base | **0.102 ms** |
279///
280/// **88× on the dominant cost.** This is purgatory's computation-layer clause
281/// made real: the stdlib is the most-reused computation in the language, and
282/// it was being discarded and recomputed rather than resurrected.
283///
284/// Isolation is `fork`'s contract, not an assumption made here — its
285/// correctness gates live upstream in `fork.rs`, and `fork_cost.rs` guards
286/// against a future change that deep-copies (which would keep every
287/// correctness test green while silently restoring the cost this removes).
288static HOSTLESS_BASE: std::sync::LazyLock<std::sync::Mutex<Interpreter<()>>> =
289    std::sync::LazyLock::new(|| std::sync::Mutex::new(interpreter(&mut ())));
290
291/// The common host-free case.
292///
293/// Forks the process-wide base rather than rebuilding the stdlib. Falls back to
294/// a full build if the lock is poisoned: a poisoned lock means another thread
295/// panicked mid-fork, and answering a correct-but-slow interpreter beats
296/// propagating someone else's panic into an unrelated caller.
297pub fn interpreter_hostless() -> Interpreter<()> {
298    let mut interp = match HOSTLESS_BASE.lock() {
299        Ok(base) => base.fork(),
300        Err(_) => interpreter(&mut ()),
301    };
302    // Again after the fork: the base may have been built before the bounds
303    // were named, and a fork inherits whatever its base had.
304    apply_execution_bounds(&mut interp);
305    // A node per fork: the base's own node would be shared by every program.
306    attach_node(&mut interp);
307    interp
308}
309
310/// Lift spanless forms into what the evaluator eats.
311///
312/// **No longer on the `blue run` path, and that is the point.**
313/// [`erase::erase_types`] now takes and returns `Spanned`, so
314/// `pipeline::run_in_surface` hands the evaluator the *parser's own* tree with
315/// the author's positions on it — there is nothing left to lift. This
316/// function survives for a caller that genuinely holds spanless `Sexp` and
317/// has no position to preserve, and as the subject of the two tests below
318/// that pin why the hop it replaced was unsafe.
319///
320/// `Interpreter::eval_program` takes `&[Spanned]`; blue's stages produced
321/// `Sexp`. Two callers bridged that gap by *printing the tree and reading it
322/// back* — `forms.map(ToString::to_string).join("\n")` into
323/// `tatara_lisp::read_spanned`. Both stopped, and the round trip is gone from
324/// the pipeline.
325///
326/// **Why it had to go.** Printing a tree we already hold and re-parsing it puts
327/// the reader's lexer between blue and its own output, for nothing — and the
328/// printer and the reader are **not inverses**. `Atom::Str`'s `Display` escapes
329/// its payload and its own docs explain at length why; the `Atom::Symbol` arm
330/// is a bare `write_str`. So a symbol whose text carries a separator prints as
331/// several tokens and reads back as several symbols: a well-formed tree with a
332/// different meaning, no error raised. Measured 2026-08-02 —
333/// `pipeline::tests::the_round_trip_is_not_the_identity_in_general` pins which
334/// separators are silent and which are loud. The only thing that kept this from
335/// biting was blue happening not to emit those bytes. A stage that never
336/// serialises cannot be mis-read.
337///
338/// **What is given up: spans.** The old path's spans pointed into the
339/// re-printed lisp text, a buffer no human ever wrote and no diagnostic could
340/// usefully cite — they were positions in blue's own output, not in the
341/// author's source. `Span::synthetic` says the same thing honestly.
342///
343/// **Carrying real blue-source spans through erasure was the separate piece of
344/// work, and it is done — but NOT the way this doc predicted.** It said the
345/// work "would start from `Spanned::from_sexp_at`". It did not, and could not:
346/// `from_sexp_at` is a *lift*, stamping ONE span across a whole subtree, so
347/// starting there would have replaced a tree of synthetic spans with a tree of
348/// identical wrong ones. The actual shape was to stop projecting in the first
349/// place — erasure walks `Spanned` and keeps each node's own span, because it
350/// only ever deletes (see [`erase`]). **A pointer at the nearest-looking API is
351/// how a reader is sent to the wrong starting point**; the note is corrected
352/// here rather than deleted, because the wrong lead was load-bearing enough to
353/// be worth naming.
354#[must_use]
355pub fn lower_to_spanned(forms: &[tatara_lisp::Sexp]) -> Vec<tatara_lisp::Spanned> {
356    forms
357        .iter()
358        .map(tatara_lisp::Spanned::from_sexp_synthetic)
359        .collect()
360}
361
362#[cfg(test)]
363mod tests {
364    use super::*;
365    use tatara_lisp_eval::Value;
366
367    fn eval(src: &str) -> Value {
368        let forms = tatara_lisp::read_spanned(src).expect("read");
369        let mut interp = interpreter_hostless();
370        interp.eval_program(&forms, &mut ()).expect("eval")
371    }
372
373    /// Every layer is present. A test that only checked layer 1 is exactly
374    /// what let the stdlib gap survive.
375    #[test]
376    fn both_layers_are_installed() {
377        // Layer 1: a Rust primitive.
378        assert!(matches!(eval("(+ 1 2)"), Value::Int(3)));
379        // Layer 2: a stdlib definition, which is the layer that was missing.
380        assert!(matches!(eval("(mod 7 3)"), Value::Int(1)));
381        assert!(matches!(eval("(inc 41)"), Value::Int(42)));
382        assert!(matches!(eval("(first (list 9 8))"), Value::Int(9)));
383        // Layer 3: blue's own core — string and number conversion.
384        assert!(matches!(eval(r#"(length "héllo")"#), Value::Int(5)));
385        // Layer 4: the JSON surface.
386        assert!(matches!(
387            eval(r#"(json_parse "{\"outcome\":\"ok\"}")"#),
388            Value::List(_)
389        ));
390        // Layer 4b: cryptography.
391        assert!(matches!(eval(r#"(blake3_hex "")"#), Value::Str(_)));
392    }
393
394    /// Anti-vacuity: a bare interpreter really does LACK layer 2, so the test
395    /// above is measuring the runtime's contribution and not a property the
396    /// interpreter has for free.
397    #[test]
398    fn a_bare_interpreter_lacks_the_stdlib() {
399        let forms = tatara_lisp::read_spanned("(mod 7 3)").expect("read");
400        let mut bare = Interpreter::new();
401        tatara_lisp_eval::install_primitives(&mut bare);
402        assert!(
403            bare.eval_program(&forms, &mut ()).is_err(),
404            "if a bare interpreter already resolved `mod`, this crate would be measuring nothing"
405        );
406    }
407}