Documentation

Learn Alpha.

Start with Getting started, keep the language guide open while you write, and turn to the specification when you need the exact rule.

Browse every Alpha source file →

Learn

Getting startedstart

Build the compiler, run a first program, and build a GPU training executable.

Language guideexplanation

The full tour: syntax, types, quantities, effects and families, and why Alpha is built this way.

Families and branchesanalysis

Indexed data, constructors, motives, recursion, and exhaustive elimination.

Understand

Learning systemsanalysis

How Alpha turns learning ideas into checked, comparable experiments on real hardware.

Language and compileranalysis

How source becomes checked core, typed machine work, native artifacts, and evidence.

Built for agentsanalysis

Why Alpha is literal, fast to compile, strictly typed, and names every device and GPU instruction: so agents can take a system apart and rebuild it.

Philosophyanalysis

Why Alpha reopens the design space for agents instead of freezing today's AI stack.

The living catalogueanalysis

How a growing library of typed knowledge could let agents assemble and test learning systems from humanity's reusable ideas.

Catalogue-guided searchanalysis

A research architecture for turning source-grounded mechanisms into diverse, qualified Alpha experiments.

Evaluate

Fit and limitsanalysis

What Alpha is good at, what it is bad at, and the central tradeoff.

Criticisms and hard questionsanalysis

An adversarial review agenda covering Alpha's thesis, engineering, science, evidence, and viability.

Where the ideas come fromanalysis

Primary literature behind dependent, quantitative, effectful, and verified programming.

Evidence and statusanalysis

How to read checked, run and measured claims, and what each one does not establish.

Reference

Specificationnormative

The normative language semantics and trusted boundary.

Grammargenerated

Generated concrete syntax and parser-facing forms.

Language referencegenerated

Exact forms, quantities, effects, interfaces, and artifacts.

Diagnosticsgenerated

Stable error codes, phases, and repair guidance.

Editions

Edition alpha-2026generated

The public stable edition manifest.

Edition alpha-2027generated

The repository-selected draft edition manifest.

Focused guides

Application formsexplanation

Application syntax, grouping, associativity, and diagnostics.

Buildersexplanation

Bounded byte construction and runtime image building.

Pathsexplanation

Path representation and file-effect boundaries.

Incremental cacheexplanation

Cache identity, invalidation, and verification.