Lykn

Installing Lykn

Prerequisites

You need two things: Deno and Rust (for the compiler).

Deno is the JavaScript runtime Lykn uses for running compiled output, testing, and the development workflow:

brew install deno

Rust is the language the Lykn compiler is written in. Install it via rustup:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Installing the Compiler

cargo install lykn-cli

That’s it. You now have the lykn binary on your path — a self-contained compiler with no runtime dependencies.

If you prefer to build from source:

git clone https://github.com/oxur/lykn.git
cd lykn
cargo build --release && cp target/release/lykn bin/

Your First Project

lykn new my-app
cd my-app

lykn new scaffolds a workspace with project.json, a starter module, a test file using the @lykn/testing DSL, and README.md + LICENSE for publishing.

Verifying

lykn run packages/my-app/mod.lykn

If you see output, the compiler is working.

The Full Toolkit

lykn compile main.lykn                    # compile to stdout
lykn compile main.lykn -o main.js         # compile to file
lykn compile main.lykn --strip-assertions # production mode
lykn run main.lykn                        # compile + run
lykn test                                 # run project tests
lykn check main.lykn                      # syntax check
lykn fmt main.lykn                        # format to stdout
lykn fmt -w main.lykn                     # format in place
lykn new project-name                     # scaffold a project

One binary for compilation, formatting, checking, running, testing, and project creation. The Inquisition, one suspects, would have preferred something more complicated.