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Getting Started

Set up the Ora development environment and run the current compiler.

Ora is experimental and not ready for production use. Syntax and features change frequently.

Prerequisites​

  • Zig 0.15.x
  • CMake
  • Git
  • Z3
  • MLIR

Installation​

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/oralang/Ora.git
cd Ora

# Run the setup helper
./setup.sh

# Build the compiler
zig build

# Run tests
zig build test

Verify the install​

# View CLI help
./zig-out/bin/ora --help

# Compile an example contract
./zig-out/bin/ora ora-example/smoke.ora

# Format Ora source code
./zig-out/bin/ora fmt contract.ora

# Emit Ora MLIR
./zig-out/bin/ora emit-mlir ora-example/smoke.ora

Start a new project​

# Scaffold a project in a new directory
./zig-out/bin/ora init my-project
cd my-project

This generates an ora.toml, contracts/main.ora, and a README.md. You can also run ora init in an existing empty directory or ora init . for the current directory.

Try your first contract​

contract SimpleStorage {
    storage var value: u256;

    pub fn set(new_value: u256) {
        value = new_value;
    }

    pub fn get() -> u256 {
        return value;
    }
}

Build it:

./zig-out/bin/ora build contracts/main.ora

Formatting​

# Format a file in-place
./zig-out/bin/ora fmt simple_test.ora

# Check if code is formatted (useful for CI)
./zig-out/bin/ora fmt --check simple_test.ora

# Show diff of formatting changes
./zig-out/bin/ora fmt --diff simple_test.ora

# Output formatted code to stdout
./zig-out/bin/ora fmt --stdout simple_test.ora

See Code Formatter for details.

Multi-file projects​

Ora supports namespace-qualified imports for splitting code across files:

const math = @import("./math.ora");

contract Calculator {
    pub fn run() -> u256 {
        return math.add(40, 2);
    }
}

See Imports and Modules for the full import system, including package imports, ora.toml configuration, and resolution rules.

Exploring the repo​

  • ora-example/ contains runnable samples.
  • examples/imports_simple/ contains multi-file import examples.
  • tests/fixtures/ contains parser and semantics fixtures.
  • GRAMMAR.bnf and GRAMMAR.ebnf describe the current grammar.
  • Sensei-IR (SIR) describes the backend IR.

Status​

  • Examples in ora-example/ are aligned with the current compiler behavior.
  • Expect breaking changes before ASUKA.