elenchus-parser

⚠️ Experimental. elenchus is mostly an AI-built experiment — written with the help of a small local model (Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-UD-Q4_K_XL.gguf) and various Claude models, in roughly equal measure. Expect non-professional design choices, rough edges, broken behavior, or mistakes. Use it at your own risk.

Parser for the English-like elenchus reasoning DSL.

no_std (needs alloc), built on nom + nom_locate. Zero-copy over &str, line/column tracking, and human-friendly errors with a ^--- here caret.

The syntax is line- and keyword-oriented (not S-expressions): keywords are always CAPS, content is lowercase, and indentation is cosmetic — block boundaries are found by keywords, never by indent depth. This is deliberately easy for a small model to emit without tripping on parentheses or whitespace.

Surface

IMPORT "physics.vrf"

FACT Creature.A has flying
NOT  Creature.A has cold_blood

AXIOM fly_xor_swim:
    EXCLUSIVE
        Creature.A has flying
        Creature.A has swimming

RULE needs_oxygen:
    WHEN Creature.A has flying
    THEN Creature.A needs oxygen

CHECK Creature.A BIDIRECTIONAL

Usage

use elenchus_parser::{parse, Statement};

let program = parse("FACT Creature.A has flying\n").unwrap();
assert!(matches!(program.statements[0], Statement::Fact(_)));

On a malformed input, parse returns a ParseError whose Display points at the real problem:

Syntax Error at line 3, col 1: expected THEN to complete the WHEN ... THEN implication
  | CHECK Creature.A
  | ^--- here

License

MIT — see LICENSE.