English | 简体中文
A compiled language with native control and modern ergonomics
Docs | Installation | Quick Start | Language Overview | CLI Reference
Kinal was born from dissatisfaction with the trade-offs made by existing languages.
We don't accept "sacrifice ergonomics for performance", and we don't accept "give up low-level control for ease of use".
Kinal's goal is simple -- provide genuine native control and cross-platform capability, with clear and intuitive syntax.
- Statically typed -- compile-time type checking with Var inference for concise, safe code
- Three-tier safety -- Safe / Trusted / Unsafe precisely bound dangerous operations
- Native OOP -- classes, interfaces, virtual methods, generics, with clean syntax
- Dual backends -- LLVM native compilation and KinalVM bytecode, same code both ways
- Block objects -- a unique suspendable code-block mechanism with Record labels and Jump transfers
- First-class async -- Async/Await with a built-in event loop
- C interop -- zero-overhead Extern/Delegate calls into C libraries
- Meta annotations -- custom attribute system queryable at compile time or runtime
- Complete toolchain -- compiler, VM, formatter, package manager, LSP server
Option 1: use the install script (recommended, it handles the toolchain layout and PATH setup for you)
curl -sSL https://kinal.org/install.sh | bashOption 2: install manually
Download the pre-built package for your platform from Releases and place kinal (and optionally kinalvm) on your PATH.
Then verify the installation:
kinal --versionCreate hello.kn and run:
kinal run hello.kn
Kinal/
apps/ kinal/ kinal-lsp/ kinalvm/
libs/ runtime/ std/
docs/ zh-CN/
dev/
tests/
infra/
Requirements: Python 3.10+ CMake 3.20+ Ninja LLVM/Clang
python x.py fetch llvm-prebuilt
python x.py dev
python x.py test
python x.py release
See Build Guide for details.
| English | Chinese | |
|---|---|---|
| User docs | docs/ | docs/zh-CN/ |
| Developer docs | dev/ | dev/zh-CN/ |
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| kinal build | Compile to native executable, object file, assembly, or LLVM IR |
| kinal run | Compile and run immediately |
| kinal vm build/run/pack | KinalVM bytecode build, run, and pack |
| kinal fmt | Code formatter |
| kinal pkg build/info/unpack | Package management |
| kinal-lsp | LSP server for editor completion and diagnostics |
Kinal has an official VS Code extension.
Extension source: Kinal-Lang/Kinal-VSCode
kinal build --lang en main.kn
kinal build --lang zh main.kn
This project is open source under the MIT License.