Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (stable): rustup.rs
• System C compiler (cc on macOS/Linux, MSVC on Windows)

Build

git clone https://github.com/skelpo/perry.git
cd perry

# Build all crates (release mode recommended)
cargo build --release

The binary is at target/release/perry.

Build Specific Crates

# Runtime only (must rebuild stdlib too!)
cargo build --release -p perry-runtime -p perry-stdlib

# Codegen only
cargo build --release -p perry-codegen

Important: When rebuilding perry-runtime, you must also rebuild perry-stdlib because libperry_stdlib.a embeds perry-runtime as a static dependency.

Run Tests

# All tests (exclude iOS crate on non-iOS host)
cargo test --workspace --exclude perry-ui-ios

# Specific crate
cargo test -p perry-hir
cargo test -p perry-codegen

Compile and Run TypeScript

# Compile a TypeScript file
cargo run --release -- hello.ts -o hello
./hello

# Debug: print HIR
cargo run --release -- hello.ts --print-hir

Development Workflow

1. Make changes to the relevant crate
2. cargo build --release to build
3. cargo test --workspace --exclude perry-ui-ios to verify
4. Test with a real TypeScript file: cargo run --release -- test.ts -o test && ./test

Project Structure

perry/
├── crates/
│   ├── perry/              # CLI driver
│   ├── perry-parser/       # SWC TypeScript parser
│   ├── perry-types/        # Type definitions
│   ├── perry-hir/          # HIR and lowering
│   ├── perry-transform/    # IR passes
│   ├── perry-codegen/      # Cranelift codegen
│   ├── perry-codegen-js/   # Web target codegen
│   ├── perry-codegen-swiftui/ # Widget codegen
│   ├── perry-runtime/      # Runtime library
│   ├── perry-stdlib/       # npm package implementations
│   ├── perry-ui/           # Shared UI types
│   ├── perry-ui-macos/     # macOS AppKit UI
│   ├── perry-ui-ios/       # iOS UIKit UI
│   └── perry-jsruntime/    # QuickJS integration
├── docs/                   # This documentation (mdBook)
├── CLAUDE.md               # Detailed implementation notes
└── CHANGELOG.md            # Version history

Next Steps

• Architecture — Crate map and pipeline overview
• See CLAUDE.md for detailed implementation notes and pitfalls