Get started

Installing kaikai

The command-line tool is called kai. You can install it via Homebrew (quick) or build it from source (if you want to contribute to the language).

Homebrew · macOS and Linux

The official distribution lives in its own tap.

brew install kaikailang-org/kaikai/kaikai

Verify the install:

kai --version

If clang is on your PATH (on macOS, run xcode-select --install to get the Xcode Command Line Tools), kai uses the LLVM backend by default. Otherwise it falls back to the C backend, which works on any machine with a standard cc.

From source

To hack on the compiler or track main, clone the repo and build the three-stage bootstrap:

git clone https://github.com/kaikailang-org/kaikai
cd kaikai
make tier0

The first ./bin/kai invocation compiles whichever stage binaries are missing; subsequent calls reuse them. Stages 0 and 1 only need a C99 cc; stage 2 is the user-facing path.

Your first program

Save this as hello.kai:

fn main() {
  println("hello, kaikai")
}

Then run it:

kai run hello.kai
# hello, kaikai

To produce a native binary instead of running directly:

kai build hello.kai -o hello
./hello

What's next

Browse the examples.
Read the book for the long-form walkthrough of the language with real programs.
Visit the GitHub repo and open an issue if something seems off.