nail-lang 0.5.0

A programming language designed to be written by AI, not humans.

NAIL — Native AI Language

A programming language designed to be written by AI, not humans.

What is NAIL?

NAIL is an experimental programming language built on a simple premise:

In the age of AI-driven development, human readability is an unnecessary constraint.

Modern programming languages carry decades of design decisions optimized for human cognition — syntax sugar, implicit conversions, flexible formatting, multiple ways to express the same thing. These features reduce cognitive load for human developers, but they introduce ambiguity, hidden behavior, and inference overhead for AI systems.

NAIL removes that weight entirely.

Why NAIL? Three Core Guarantees

	Guarantee	Example
Zero Ambiguity	The same spec generates identical code every time	JCS canonical form: json.dumps(sort_keys=True, separators=(',',':')) — one representation, always
Effect System	Side effects tracked at the type level	fn main [] → fn helper [IO] is a compile-time error, not a lint warning
Verification Layers	AI-written code passes 3 independent checks before running	L0 (schema) → L1 (types) → L2 (effects) — all enforced, no silent passes

Core Design Principles

1. AI-first, human-second — Written and maintained by AI. Human developers interact at the specification layer, not the code layer.
2. Zero ambiguity — One way to express every construct. No implicit behavior. No undefined behavior. Enforced by JCS canonical form.
3. Effects as types — All side effects (IO, network, filesystem) are declared in function signatures and enforced by the type system.
4. Verification layers (L0–L2) — Every program passes schema, type, and effect checks before execution. No silent passes.
5. Formal verification (v0.4+) — Full termination proofs and formal verification are a future milestone.
6. Self-evolving — The language specification itself is developed and improved by AI, with humans providing intent and constraints.

FAQ: Is NAIL just a JSON AST?

Short answer: no — but it's a fair question.

Most languages use an AST as an internal representation. NAIL uses JSON as its only representation — there is no text syntax that compiles to it.

What makes NAIL different from "JSON-serialized AST":

1. The verifier layers are the language. The JSON schema (L0), type checker (L1), and effect checker (L2) are not tools built on top of NAIL — they are NAIL. A program passing all three layers is formally correct by construction. Layering is intentional: L0 is minimal by design, while L1/L2 enforce semantic correctness.

Layer	Responsibility
L0 (Schema)	Minimum structural validity — accepts correctly shaped JSON programs
L1 (Type Checker)	Type correctness — catches int/string mismatches and undefined variables
L2 (Effect Checker)	Effect isolation — IO in pure functions is a compile-time error

2. Effects as first-class types. Every function declares its side effects (io, net, fs) in its signature. Calling an IO function from a pure context is a compile-time error — not a lint warning, not a runtime panic.

{"nail":"0.2","kind":"module","defs":[
  {"id":"log_it","effects":["IO"],"params":[{"id":"x","type":{"type":"int","bits":64,"overflow":"panic"}}],"returns":{"type":"unit"},"body":[]},
  {"id":"pure_fn","effects":[],"params":[],"returns":{"type":"unit"},"body":[
    {"op":"call","fn":"log_it","args":[{"lit":1}]}
  ]}
]}

$ nail check above.nail
CheckError: call to 'log_it' requires effects [IO], but 'pure_fn' only has []

No runtime needed. The effect contract is violated at check time.

3. Canonical form. There is exactly one valid JSON representation for any given program. No formatting choices, no style variants. An LLM generating the same logic twice will produce token-for-token identical output.

This is enforced by the JCS (JSON Canonicalization Scheme, RFC 8785) implementation: nail canonicalize normalizes any NAIL program to its canonical form, and nail check --strict rejects non-canonical input. Example files are stored in canonical form.

4. Designed for LLM generation, not LLM reading. NAIL is not optimized for an LLM to read existing code. It is optimized for an LLM to write new code: zero ambiguity, zero implicit behavior, zero hallucination surface area.

The analogy: SQL is "just text for querying tables," but the relational model and declarative semantics are what make it SQL — not the text format.

FAQ: Why JSON and not S-expressions (Lisp)?

Modern LLMs have JSON structured output modes built in (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google all provide response_format: json). JSON is the de facto interchange format of AI systems in 2026. Using S-expressions would make NAIL "typed Scheme with effects" — a 60-year-old idea without the novelty.

JSON-as-AST is the differentiator. The canonical form guarantee (nail canonicalize) is only possible because JSON has well-defined serialization semantics (RFC 8785 / JCS). S-expressions have no such standard.

Status

🧪 Experimental — v0.4 — pip install nail-lang

Feature	Status
Types: int/float/bool/string/option/list/map/unit	✅ Implemented
Effect system (IO/FS/NET/TIME/RAND/MUT)	✅ Implemented
JCS canonical form + nail canonicalize + --strict	✅ Implemented
kind: fn + kind: module + function calls	✅ Implemented
Mutable variables (let mut + assign)	✅ Implemented
Bounded loops + if/else	✅ Implemented
Recursion/cycle detection	✅ Implemented
Return-path exhaustiveness check	✅ Implemented
L0 JSON Schema + L1 Type + L2 Effect checks	✅ Implemented
Overflow modes: wrap / sat / panic	✅ Implemented (v0.3)
Result type (ok/err/match_result)	✅ Implemented (v0.3)
Cross-module import + effect propagation	✅ Implemented (v0.3)
Type aliases (module-level types dict, circular detection)	✅ Implemented (v0.4)
Fine-grained Effect capabilities (path/op allow-lists)	✅ Implemented (v0.4)
Collection type operations (list_get/push/len, map_get)	✅ Implemented (v0.4)
read_file (FS) / http_get (NET)	✅ Fully implemented (v0.4)
Formal verification / termination proofs	🔮 Future (v0.6+)

v0.4 New Features

Type Aliases

Define named type aliases at the module level and use them in function signatures and expressions:

{"nail":"0.4","kind":"module",
  "types": {
    "UserId":   {"type":"int","bits":64,"overflow":"panic"},
    "Username": {"type":"string"}
  },
  "defs":[
    {"id":"greet_user",
     "effects":[],
     "params":[{"id":"uid","type":"UserId"},{"id":"name","type":"Username"}],
     "returns":{"type":"string"},
     "body":[
       {"op":"return","value":{"op":"concat","args":[{"lit":"Hello, "},{"var":"name"}]}}
     ]}
  ]
}

Circular aliases (A → B → A) are caught at check time as a CheckError:

$ nail check circular.nail
CheckError: circular type alias detected: 'A' → 'B' → 'A'

Fine-grained Effect Capabilities

Effect declarations can now specify structured constraints — restricting which paths, URLs, or operations are permitted. Legacy string-style declarations ("FS", "NET") remain fully supported.

{"nail":"0.4","kind":"fn","id":"read_config",
  "effects":[{"kind":"FS","allow":["/etc/myapp/"],"ops":["read"]}],
  "params":[],"returns":{"type":"string"},
  "body":[
    {"op":"return","value":{"op":"read_file","path":{"lit":"/etc/myapp/config.toml"}}}
  ]
}

Attempting to write, or to access a path outside the allow-list, is a runtime error enforced by the Effect Capability:

$ nail run write_attempt.nail
EffectDenied: 'write' not in allowed ops for FS capability (allow: ['/etc/myapp/'], ops: ['read'])

Secondary Effects: Token Efficiency

A byproduct of NAIL's minimal, unambiguous design is reduced token usage. In a Phase 2 validation experiment (2026-02-22), an LLM implemented the same 5 tasks in both Python and NAIL.

Metric	NAIL	Python
Spec validation (L0–L2)	5/5 (100%)	N/A
Test pass rate	18/21 (86%)	21/21 (100%)
Avg tokens per function	173	571
Type annotations	Always required (compile error)	Optional

NAIL used ~70% fewer tokens per function — a secondary benefit of the zero-ambiguity design, not its primary goal. All NAIL failures traced to spec gaps (not AI errors).

→ Full results: experiments/phase2/ANALYSIS.md

Structure

nail/
├── SPEC.md          — Language specification
├── PHILOSOPHY.md    — Design rationale and background
├── ROADMAP.md       — Development phases
├── examples/        — Sample NAIL programs
├── interpreter/     — Python interpreter (Checker + Runtime)
├── playground/      — Local FastAPI playground (server-based)
├── docs/            — GitHub Pages static playground (Pyodide/WASM)
└── AGENTS.md        — AI agent instructions for this repo

Playground

🌐 Online

Try NAIL instantly in your browser — no installation required:

https://naillang.com

Powered by Pyodide — the Python interpreter compiled to WebAssembly. The NAIL interpreter runs entirely client-side.

💻 Local (FastAPI)

cd playground
python server.py
# → open http://127.0.0.1:7429

Features: live JSON editor, 8 built-in examples, argument passing, dark theme. See playground/README.md for details.

Quick Start

Browser — no install: → https://naillang.com

CLI: pip install nail-lang

Requirements: Python 3.10+

Clone & run:

git clone https://github.com/watari-ai/nail.git
cd nail
pip install -r requirements.txt
./nail run examples/hello.nail

Why NAIL?

See PHILOSOPHY.md for the full reasoning.

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NAIL is built by AI, for AI. Humans define the intent. AI builds the machine.