Menai

Menai is a pure functional programming language with Lisp-like S-expression syntax. It is homoiconic, strictly typed, and has no side effects — no I/O, no mutation, no access to the filesystem, network, or any external state.

A language designed for AI

Menai was born inside Humbug, an operating system for human-AI collaboration. The problem was straightforward: AI agents needed to perform computation — sorting, filtering, transforming data, parsing, mathematical reasoning — but giving an AI the ability to execute arbitrary Python or shell commands is dangerous. An AI that can run arbitrary code can delete files, exfiltrate data, or cause other harm, which means every execution needs human approval.

Menai takes a different approach. By being pure and side-effect free, it requires no sandboxing and no user approval to execute. There are no dangerous parts to escape from because the language cannot touch anything outside itself. This lets AI agents build and run complex algorithmic tools freely and safely, without interrupting a human collaborator for approval on every execution.

Menai has since been extracted from Humbug into its own repository. It has zero dependencies on Humbug and is consumed as an external dependency.

Key characteristics

Pure functional — no side effects, no mutation, immutable data
Homoiconic — code and data share the same representation (S-expressions)
Strictly typed — no implicit coercion between numeric types; each type has its own operators (e.g. integer+, float*, complex/)
Proper lists only — no cons cells or improper lists
Tail call optimised — recursive functions don't overflow the stack
Pattern matching — declarative branching with destructuring
Module system — write and import .menai files
Bytes type — with multi-byte integer read/write (little/big-endian, LEB128)
Structs — nominal typed records with functional updates

Language manual

The full language manual is in docs/. Start with docs/index.md for a table of contents and introduction.

The manual is written for both human and AI readers. It is precise, concrete, and self-contained — no prior knowledge of Scheme or Lisp is assumed.

Getting started

Installation

pip install menai

The C VM is compiled into the wheels, so pip install menai includes it automatically — no separate build or download step is needed. Wheels are published for Linux, macOS, and Windows on x86_64 and ARM64, across Python 3.10–3.14.

Development

For local development, install in editable mode and build the C VM from source:

pip install -e ".[dev]"
make build

Requires a C compiler (gcc, clang, or MSVC).

Running tests

make test

A first program

(let ((greet (lambda (name)
               (string-concat "Hello, " name))))
  (greet "World"))

Evaluates to "Hello, World".

Implementation

Menai is compiled through an optimizing pipeline (lexing → AST → semantic analysis → module resolution → desugaring → constant folding → IR → IR optimisation → CFG → CFG optimisation → VCode → bytecode) and executed by a register-based C VM.

The pipeline is authoritative in src/menai/menai_compiler.py — it is always current and should be read directly rather than reproduced in documentation.

The reference implementation is in Python, but the language specification is independent of Python. Future bindings (C, Rust, etc.) will implement the same language against the same spec.

Repository structure

menai/
├── docs/                       # language manual
├── menai_modules/              # standard library (.menai files)
├── pyproject.toml              # Python package configuration
├── setup.py                    # C VM extension build (platform-specific flags)
├── src/
│   ├── menai/                  # compiler core (lexer, parser, IR, CFG, bytecode, VM)
│   ├── menai_benchmark/        # performance benchmarking tool
│   ├── menai_checker/          # parenthesis balance checker
│   ├── menai_disassembler/     # bytecode disassembler
│   ├── menai_pretty_print/     # code formatter
│   ├── menai_profiler/         # profiling tool
│   └── menai_test_runner/      # test runner for *_test.menai files
└── tests/                      # compiler core tests

Design intent

See blueprint.md for the design philosophy, core principles, and architectural decisions behind Menai.

License

Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE.txt.

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menai 0.1.1

Menai

A language designed for AI

Key characteristics

Language manual

Getting started

Installation

Development

Running tests

A first program

Implementation

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