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Vox: The AI-Native Programming Language

Ecosystem & Tooling

Ecosystem & Tooling

Section titled “Ecosystem & Tooling”

Note: This page describes the intended developer experience. The crates/vox-cli binary implements a subset of commands today (build, check, test, run, bundle; fmt / install fail until wired; lsp). Authoritative current flags: ref-cli.md.

Vox ships with a complete development toolchain: compiler, bundler, test runner, formatter, package manager, and language server — converging on the vox CLI as the primary entry point.

CLI Commands

Section titled “CLI Commands”

vox build

Section titled “vox build”

Compile a .vox file to Rust and TypeScript:

Terminal window
# Basic build
vox build app.vox -o dist

Watch mode and other flags may land later; use vox build --help and ref-cli.md for what the binary exposes now.

Typical output layout (minimal CLI) — filenames vary by program; Rust lands under target/generated/:

dist/
├── backend/      # Generated Rust (Axum server)
│   ├── src/
│   │   └── main.rs
│   └── Cargo.toml
└── frontend/     # Generated TypeScript (React)
    ├── src/
    │   └── App.tsx
    └── package.json

vox bundle

Section titled “vox bundle”

Ship a single statically-linked binary containing frontend + backend + SQLite:

Terminal window
# Release build targeting Linux
vox bundle app.vox --release --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl


# Debug build (default)
vox bundle app.vox

vox test

Section titled “vox test”

Run @test decorated functions:

Terminal window
vox test tests.vox

This compiles the test functions to Rust #[test] blocks and runs them with cargo test.

vox fmt

Section titled “vox fmt”

Minimal binary today: vox fmt exits with an error until vox-fmt matches the current AST. Formatting work lives in the vox-fmt crate.

Terminal window
vox fmt app.vox

See ref-cli.md.

vox lsp

Section titled “vox lsp”

Launch the Language Server Protocol server:

Terminal window
vox lsp

See Language Server below for details.

Package management (vox add / vox sync / vox pm)

Section titled “Package management (vox add / vox sync / vox pm)”

vox install is removed (no CLI subcommand). Use vox add, vox lock, vox sync, and vox pm per reference/cli.md; see the full mapping in pm-migration-2026.md.

vox vendor

Section titled “vox vendor”

Offline trees: use vox pm vendor. Populate .vox_modules/dl/ with vox sync first.

Language Server (LSP)

Section titled “Language Server (LSP)”

The vox-lsp crate provides IDE support via the Language Server Protocol.

Current Features

Section titled “Current Features”
FeatureStatus
Syntax error diagnostics✅ Implemented
Type error diagnostics✅ Implemented
Go to Definition🔜 Planned
Completion🔜 Planned
Hover info🔜 Planned

Setup

Section titled “Setup”

  1. Build the LSP server:

    Terminal window
    cargo build --release -p vox-lsp

  2. Configure your editor:

    VS Code (with the vox-vscode extension or manual configuration):

    "vox.lsp.serverPath": "/path/to/target/release/vox-lsp"

The LSP server integrates the full compiler pipeline — when you save a file, it re-runs the lexer, parser, and type checker to provide real-time diagnostics.

Package Manager (vox-package)

Section titled “Package Manager (vox-package)”

The Vox package manager uses a Content-Addressable Store (CAS) backed by libSQL/Turso.

How It Works

Section titled “How It Works”
store(data) → SHA3-256 hash
get(hash)   → data

All artifacts are stored by their content hash:

  • Deterministic — same content always produces the same hash
  • Deduplication — identical artifacts share a single stored copy
  • Integrity — content can be verified against its hash at any time

Database Backends

Section titled “Database Backends”
ModeUse Case
Remote (Turso)Production — cloud-hosted database
Local SQLiteDevelopment — local file storage
In-MemoryTesting — ephemeral database
Embedded ReplicaHybrid — local cache with cloud sync
Section titled “Semantic Code Search”

The package manager includes a de Bruijn indexing normalizer that strips identifier names from AST nodes and replaces bound variables with positional indices. This enables detection of semantically identical code regardless of naming differences.

bind_name(namespace, name, hash)    # Map a name to content
lookup_name(namespace, name) → hash # Resolve a name to content
search_code_snippets(query, limit)  # Vector-similarity search

Agent Memory

Section titled “Agent Memory”

The store also manages agent memory for AI-powered features:

recall_async(agent, type, limit, min_importance)  # Query with relevance filtering

Installation

Section titled “Installation”
Section titled “Automated (recommended)”
Terminal window
# Linux / macOS
./scripts/install.sh          # End-user install
./scripts/install.sh --dev    # Full contributor setup
./scripts/install.sh plan     # JSON install plan (CI/tooling)


# Windows (PowerShell)
.\scripts\install.ps1         # End-user install
.\scripts\install.ps1 -Dev    # Full contributor setup
.\scripts\install.ps1 plan    # JSON install plan (CI/tooling)

Manual

Section titled “Manual”

Prerequisites: Rust >= 1.75, Node.js >= 18, C compiler (gcc/clang/MSVC). Full workspace + Turso crates: clang on Linux/macOS; clang-cl (LLVM) on Windows — see docs/src/how-to-setup.md.

Terminal window
cargo install --locked --path crates/vox-cli

Note: Node.js and npm are required at runtime for vox bundle and vox run (frontend scaffolding). Copy .env.example to .env to configure optional API keys.

Development

Section titled “Development”

Building

Section titled “Building”
Terminal window
cargo build --workspace

Testing

Section titled “Testing”
Terminal window
cargo test --workspace

Linting

Section titled “Linting”
Terminal window
cargo fmt --all -- --check    # Format check
cargo clippy --workspace      # Lint check

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”