Roadmap to ASUKA Release

The ASUKA release will be Ora's first stable alpha, marking completion of the core compiler infrastructure and basic language features.

Release Goals

ASUKA aims to provide a complete, testable smart contract language implementation suitable for experimentation and early adoption.

Core Requirements

✅ Lexer & Parser (Complete)

• Token generation
• AST building
• Error recovery
• 79% example validation rate

✅ Type System (Complete)

• Type checking
• Type inference
• Region validation
• Error unions

🚧 Code Generation (In Progress)

• Yul IR generation
• EVM bytecode output
• Optimization passes

🚧 Standard Library (In Progress)

• Core utilities
• Common patterns
• Type conversions

📋 Documentation (Planned)

• Complete language specification
• Comprehensive examples
• API reference
• Tutorial guides

Current Progress

Completed (Q3-Q4 2025)

• ✅ Complete lexer with all tokens
• ✅ Full parser for current grammar
• ✅ Type checking and semantic analysis
• ✅ Memory region validation
• ✅ Error union implementation
• ✅ Switch statement support
• ✅ Struct and enum declarations
• ✅ MLIR lowering infrastructure
• ✅ Example validation framework

In Progress (Q4 2025)

• 🚧 Yul code generation completion
• 🚧 Standard library basics
• 🚧 Advanced loop syntax (for loops with captures)
• 🚧 Documentation overhaul
• 🚧 Example expansion

Planned for ASUKA (Q1 2025)

• 📋 Complete Yul backend
• 📋 EVM bytecode generation
• 📋 Basic standard library (10+ functions)
• 📋 50+ working examples
• 📋 Language specification v1.0
• 📋 Comprehensive test suite (>1000 tests)

Feature Status

Language Features

Feature	Status	Notes
Contracts	✅ Complete	Full declaration support
Functions	✅ Complete	Including visibility and requires
Storage regions	✅ Complete	storage, memory, tstore
Types	✅ Complete	Primitives, structs, enums, maps
Error unions	✅ Complete	!T | E1 | E2 syntax
Switch	✅ Complete	Statement and expression forms
While loops	✅ Complete	Basic iteration
For loops	🚧 In Progress	Capture syntax incomplete
Try-catch	✅ Complete	Basic error handling
Event logs	✅ Complete	Log declarations
Imports	✅ Complete	Module system

Compiler Features

Feature	Status	Notes
Lexer	✅ Complete	All tokens, trivia support
Parser	✅ Complete	79% example pass rate
Type checker	✅ Complete	Full type inference
Semantic analysis	✅ Complete	Region and error validation
MLIR lowering	✅ Complete	Optimization infrastructure
Yul generation	🚧 In Progress	Core functionality implemented
Bytecode output	🚧 In Progress	EVM backend
Optimization	📋 Planned	Advanced passes

Release Timeline

Target: Q1 2026

Milestones

1. M1: Yul Backend Complete (November 2025)

   • Generate Yul for all valid Ora programs
   • Pass Yul validation
   • Basic optimization

2. M2: Standard Library (December 2025)

   • Core utilities (10+ functions)
   • Type conversions
   • Common patterns

3. M3: Documentation (December 2025 - January 2026)

   • Language specification v1.0
   • 50+ examples
   • Tutorial guides
   • API reference

4. M4: Testing & Stabilization (January 2026)

   • 1000+ test cases
   • Bug fixes
   • Performance tuning
   • Release preparation

5. ASUKA Release (February 2026)

   • Public announcement
   • Release notes
   • Migration guide
   • Community launch

Contributing to ASUKA

Want to help get Ora to ASUKA? Here's how:

High Priority

• Yul Generation: Implement missing Yul output for language constructs
• Standard Library: Write core utility functions
• Examples: Create comprehensive example programs
• Testing: Add test cases for edge cases
• Documentation: Write tutorials and guides

Medium Priority

• Optimization: Implement optimization passes
• Error Messages: Improve compiler diagnostics
• Tooling: Build development tools (LSP, formatter)
• Benchmarks: Create performance benchmarks

Open Issues

Check GitHub Issues for tasks tagged with:

• asuka-release - Critical for first release
• good-first-issue - Perfect for new contributors
• help-wanted - Community contributions welcome

Post-ASUKA

After ASUKA, development will focus on:

• Formal Verification: Complete requires/ensures implementation
• Advanced Features: Generics, traits, advanced types
• Tooling: IDE integration, debugger, profiler
• Optimization: Advanced compiler passes
• Ecosystem: Package manager, testing framework

Questions?

• Open a GitHub Discussion
• Check the Contributing Guide
• Join development conversations in Issues

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Last updated: October 2025