or: fpath=(/path/to/stryke/completions $fpath) in .zshrc

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[THE FASTEST DYNAMIC LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD FOR PARALLEL OPERATIONS]

"There is more than one way to do it — in parallel."

"100% TDP — beware."

"The hottest language ever created. Literally."

[PATENT PENDING]

The 2nd fastest dynamic language runtime ever benchmarked for singlethreaded — behind only Mike Pall's LuaJIT, and beating it on 3 of 8 benchmarks. The fastest on all mulithreaded benchmarks. A Perl 5 compatible interpreter in Rust with native parallel primitives, NaN-boxed values, three-tier regex, bytecode VM + Cranelift JIT, streaming iterators, and rayon work-stealing across all cores. Faster than perl5, Python, Ruby, Julia, and Raku on every benchmark.

Read the Docs · Full Reference

---

Table of Contents

• [0x00] Overview
• [0x01] Install
• [0x02] Usage
• [0x03] Parallel Primitives
• [0x04] Shared State (mysync)
• [0x05] Native Data Scripting
• [0x06] Async / Trace / Timer
• [0x06b] AOP — Before / After / Around Advice
• [0x07] CLI Flags
• [0x08] Supported Perl Features
• [0x08a] --no-interop Mode
• [0x09] Architecture
• [0x0A] Examples
• [0x0B] Benchmarks
• [0x0C] Development & CI
• [0x0D] Standalone Binaries (stryke build)
• [0x0E] Inline Rust FFI (rust { ... })
• [0x0F] Bytecode Cache (rkyv)
• [0x10] Distributed pmap_on over SSH (cluster)
• [0x10a] Infrastructure Load Testing
• [0x10b] Agent/Controller Architecture
• [0x11] Language Server (stryke lsp)
• [0x12] Language Reflection
• [0x14] Package Manager
• [0x15] Web Framework (s_web)
• [0x16] AI Primitives
• [0x17] Expect / Interactive Automation
• [0x18] Documentation
• [0xFF] License

---

[0x00] OVERVIEW

stryke parses and executes Perl 5 scripts with rayon-powered work-stealing primitives across every CPU core. Highlights:

• Server farms first — the first language designed for distributed infrastructure load testing
• Bare metal heat — heat(60) pins ALL cores to 100% TDP for 60 seconds
• Agent/Controller architecture — stryke controller + stryke agent for fleet-wide stress testing
• AI is a primitive, not a library — ai "summarize this", $doc with auto-attached tool fns, MCP client+server, agent loop, RAG memory, vector search (§ 0x16)
• Web framework s_web — Rails-shaped scaffold + ERB engine + SQLite ORM + admin panel + auth + PWA + Dockerfile, s_web new app --app everything --theme cyberpunk --auth --admin --migrate (§ 0x15)
• PTY-driven interactive automation — pty_spawn/pty_expect/pty_send/pty_interact, the modern Tcl/Expect successor with cluster fanout (§ 0x17)
• All zsh glob qualifiers in a scripting language — world-first. Every qualifier from zsh's zshexpn(1) works wherever stryke takes a glob (glob, glob_par, slurp/c/cat, pwatch, <...>, par_find_files): file-type, permission, ownership, size/links/time numerics, sort + descending sort, [N,M] selection, (N) null-glob, (D) dotfiles, (F) non-empty dir, (f<bits>) mode match, (d<N>) device, (e'CMD') eval, (P…)/(Q…) join words, ^ negate, - follow-symlinks toggle, , OR, : colon modifiers. Backed by the zshrs glob engine — single source of truth, zero stryke-side reimplementation.
• Package manager — Cargo-shaped stryke.toml + stryke.lock, s add/s install/s tree resolver, hash-pinned reproducible builds (§ 0x14)
• New Parallel Subroutines and |> Pipeline Syntactic Sugar
• Runtime values — PerlValue is a NaN-boxed u64: immediates (undef, i32, raw f64 bits) and tagged Arc<HeapObject> pointers for big ints, strings, arrays, hashes, refs, regexes, atomics, channels.
• Three-tier regex — Rust regex → fancy-regex (backrefs) → pcre2 (PCRE-only verbs).
• Bytecode VM + JIT — match-dispatch interpreter with Cranelift block + linear-sub JIT (src/vm.rs, src/jit.rs).
• Rayon parallelism — every parallel builtin uses work-stealing across all cores.
• Over 4500 standard library functions

---

[0x01] INSTALL

cargo install strykelang
# or from source
git clone https://github.com/MenkeTechnologies/strykelang && cd strykelang && cargo build --release

Zsh tab completion

cp completions/_stryke /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_stryke
# or: fpath=(/path/to/stryke/completions $fpath) in .zshrc
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

stryke <TAB> then completes flags, options, and script files.

---

[0x01b] CONCISENESS — STRYKE VS THE WORLD

stryke is the most concise yet readable ASCII-only general-purpose scripting language — shorter than Perl, Ruby, Python, and AWK for real-world tasks.

vs mainstream languages

Task	stryke	chars	perl	chars	ruby	chars	python	chars
hello world	p"hello"	8	print"hello"	12	puts"hello"	10	print("hello")	14
sum 1-100	p sum 1:100	11	use List::Util'sum';say sum 1..100	38	p (1..100).sum	15	print(sum(range(1,101)))	24
double+filter+sum	~>1:10map{_*2}fi{_>5}sum p	28	say for grep{$_>5}map{$_*2}1..10	36	p (1..10).map{...}.select{...}.sum	42	print(sum(x for x in[...]))	56
max of list	p max 3,1,4,1,5	15	use List::Util'max';say max(...)	38	p [3,1,4,1,5].max	17	print(max([3,1,4,1,5]))	23
reverse string	p rev"hello"	12	say reverse"hello"	18	puts"hello".reverse	18	print("hello"[::-1])	20
count array	p cnt 1:10	10	say scalar 1..10	17	p (1..10).count	16	print(len(range(1,11)))	23
join with comma	p join",",1:5	14	say join",",1..5	17	puts (1..5).to_a.join(",")	24	print(",".join(map(...)))	36
first element	p first 1:10	13	say((1..10)[0])	16	p (1..10).first	16	print(list(range(...))[0])	27
any even	p any{even}1:5	14	use List::Util'any';say any{$_%2==0}1..5	42	`p (1..5).any?{	x	x%2==0}`	25
unique values	p uniq 1,2,2,3	15	use List::Util'uniq';say uniq(...)	38	p [1,2,2,3].uniq	17	print(list(set([...])))	27

stryke wins every task against Perl, Ruby, and Python.

vs K (array language)

K is more terse for pure array math: +/1+!100 (8 chars) vs stryke p sum 1:100 (11 chars). But K is a financial DSL, not a general-purpose language — it lacks:

Feature	stryke	K
HTTP client	fetch"url"	❌
JSON parsing	json_decode $s	needs lib
Regex	$s=~/\d+/	limited
SHA256/crypto	sha256"data"	❌
Parallel map	pmap{$_*2}@a	❌
Compression	gzip $data	❌
Base64	b64e"hi"	❌
UUID	uuid	❌
SQLite	db_query $db,$sql	❌
TOML/YAML	toml_decode $s	❌

K is a calculator. stryke is a programming language.

vs golf languages

GolfScript, Pyth, 05AB1E, Jelly — these are shorter but are write-only puzzles designed for competitions, not real software. stryke remains readable and maintainable.

---

[0x01c] WHY STRYKE — ONE-LINER COMPARISON

stryke is a one-liner-first language. No -e flag needed, everything built in, shortest syntax wins.

Character count — real tasks

Task	stryke	perl	ruby	python	awk / other
Print hello world	s 'p "hello world"' 19c	perl -e 'print "hello world\n"' 32c	ruby -e 'puts "hello world"' 29c	python3 -c 'print("hello world")' 34c	echo | awk '{print "hello world"}' 36c
Sum 1..100	s 'p sum 1..100' 16c	perl -MList::Util=sum -e 'print sum 1..100' 45c	ruby -e 'puts (1..100).sum' 28c	python3 -c 'print(sum(range(1,101)))' 38c	—
Word frequencies	s -an 'freq(@F) |> dd' 22c	perl -ane '$h{$_}++ for @F}{print "$_ $h{$_}\n" for keys %h' 61c	—	—	awk '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) a[$i]++} END{...}' 65c+
SHA256 of file	s 'p s256"f"' 13c	perl -MDigest::SHA=sha256_hex -e '...' 70c+	—	python3 -c 'import hashlib;...' 80c+	shasum -a 256 f 15c
Fetch JSON API	s 'fetch_json(URL) |> dd' 25c	needs LWP + JSON modules	needs net/http + json	needs urllib + json	curl -s URL | jq . ~40c
CSV → JSON	s 'csv_read("f") |> tj |> p' 28c	needs Text::CSV + JSON	needs csv + json	needs csv + json imports	—
Parallel map	s '1:1e6 |> pmap { $_ * 2 }' 29c	not built in	not built in	not built in	xargs -P8 50c+
Streaming parallel	s 'range(0,1e9) |> pmaps { $_ * 2 } |> take 10' 42c	not built in	not built in	not built in	not built in
Sparkline	s '(3,7,1,9) |> spark |> p' 27c	not built in	not built in	not built in	not built in
In-place sed (parallel)	s -i -pe 's/foo/bar/g' *.txt 28c	perl -i -pe 's/foo/bar/g' *.txt 33c (sequential)	ruby -i -pe '$_.gsub!(...)' 35c+	—	sed -i '' 's/foo/bar/g' *.txt 31c (sequential)

Feature matrix

Feature	stryke	perl5	ruby	python	awk	jq	nushell
No -e flag needed	yes	no	no	no (-c)	—	—	—
No semicolons	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Built-in HTTP	yes	no	no	no	no	no	yes
Built-in JSON	yes	no	no	yes	no	yes	yes
Built-in CSV	yes	no	no	yes	no	@csv	yes
Built-in SQLite	yes	no	no	yes	no	no	yes
Parallel map/grep	yes	no	no	no	no	no	par-each
Pipe-forward |>	yes	no	no	no	no	|	|
Thread macro ~>	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
In-place edit -i	parallel	sequential	sequential	no	no	no	no
Zsh glob qualifiers (/)/(.)/(L+N)/(om[1])	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
Regex engine	3-tier	PCRE	Onigmo	re	ERE	PCRE	—
Data viz (spark/bars/flame)	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
Clipboard (clip/paste)	yes	no	no	no	no	no	clip
$NR/$NF AWK compat	yes	-MEnglish	no	no	native	no	no
Typed structs/enums/classes	yes	no	native	native	no	no	native
JIT compiler	Cranelift	no	YJIT	no	no	no	no
Single binary	30MB	system pkg	system pkg	system pkg	system pkg	3MB	50MB+

---

[0x02] USAGE

stryke 'p "Hello, world!"'                 # inline code — no -e needed
stryke 'p 1 + 2'                           # just quote and go
stryke script.stk arg1 arg2                  # script + args
stryke -lane 'p $F[0]'                     # bundled short switches
stryke -c script.stk                          # syntax check
stryke --lint script.stk                     # parse + compile (no run)
stryke --disasm script.stk                   # bytecode listing on stderr
stryke --ast script.stk                      # AST as JSON
stryke --fmt script.stk                      # pretty-print parsed source
stryke --profile script.stk                  # folded stacks + per-line/per-sub ns
stryke --flame script.stk                   # colored flamegraph bars in terminal
stryke --flame script.stk > flame.svg       # interactive SVG flamegraph when piped
stryke --explain E0001                      # expanded hint for an error code
stryke docs                                  # interactive reference book (vim-style: j/k/]/[/t/q)
stryke docs pmap                             # jump straight to a topic
stryke docs --toc                            # table of contents
stryke docs --search parallel                # search all pages
stryke serve                                # static file server for $PWD on port 8000
stryke serve 8080 app.stk                   # HTTP server with handler script
stryke serve 3000 -e '"hello " . $req->{path}'  # one-liner HTTP server
stryke build script.stk -o myapp             # bake into a standalone binary ([0x0D])
stryke fmt -i .                              # format all .stk files recursively in place
stryke fmt lib/utils.stk                     # print formatted source to stdout
stryke check *.stk                           # parse + compile without executing (CI/editor)
stryke disasm script.stk                     # disassemble bytecode (learning/debugging)
stryke profile script.stk                    # run with profiling, structured output
stryke profile --flame script.stk -o out.svg # flamegraph to file
stryke bench                                 # run all benchmarks in bench/ or benches/
stryke init myapp                            # scaffold a new project (stryke.toml, lib/, t/, benches/)
stryke new myapp                             # alias for `init` that creates ./myapp/
stryke install                               # populate stryke.lock from stryke.toml (path deps; registry deps soon)
stryke add mylib --path=../mylib             # add a local path dep (registry deps land in RFC phase 7-8)
stryke remove mylib                          # drop a dep, regenerate stryke.lock
stryke tree                                  # print resolved dep graph from stryke.lock
stryke info mylib                            # show lockfile entry + store path for a dep
stryke repl                                  # start interactive REPL explicitly
stryke repl --load lib.stk                   # pre-load a library, then enter REPL
stryke lsp                                   # language server over stdio ([0x11])
stryke completions zsh                       # emit zsh completions to stdout
stryke ast script.stk                        # dump AST as JSON
stryke prun *.stk                            # run multiple files in parallel
stryke -j 4 *.stk                             # run multiple files in parallel (4 threads)
stryke convert app.pl                        # convert Perl to stryke syntax with |> pipes
stryke deconvert app.stk                     # convert stryke back to Perl syntax
stryke app.stk                                # warm starts skip parse + compile via ~/.stryke/scripts.rkyv ([0x0F])

-e is optional. If the first argument isn't a file on disk and looks like code, stryke runs it directly. stryke 'p 42' and stryke -e 'p 42' are equivalent. Use -e when combining with -n/-p/-l/-a (e.g. stryke -lane 'p $F[0]').

Semicolons

A newline ends a statement, so you do not need a trailing ; on each line. Use semicolons only when you put more than one statement on the same physical line.

my $answer = 40 + 2
p $answer                       # 42 — one statement per line, no `;` required

my $x = 1; my $y = 2; p $x + $y # 3 — same line needs `;` between statements

Interactive REPL

Run stryke with no arguments to enter a readline session: line editing, history (~/.stryke/history), tab completion for keywords, lexicals in scope, sub names, methods after -> on blessed objects, and file paths. exit/quit/Ctrl-D leaves. Non-TTY stdin is read as a complete program.

__DATA__

A line whose trimmed text is exactly __DATA__ ends the program; the trailing bytes are exposed via the DATA filehandle.

Stdin / -n / -p / -i

echo data | stryke -ne 'print uc $_'        # line loop
cat f.txt | stryke -pe 's/foo/bar/g'        # auto-print like sed
stryke -i -pe 's/foo/bar/g' file1 file2     # in-place edit (parallel across files)
stryke -i.bak -pe 's/x/y/g' *.txt           # with backup suffix
echo a:b:c | stryke -aF: -ne 'print $F[1]'  # auto-split

-l chomps each record and sets $\. eof with no args is true on the last line of stdin or each @ARGV file (Perl-compat).

Text decoding — script reads, require, do, slurp, <>, backticks, par_lines, etc. all use UTF-8 when valid, else Latin-1 octets per line/chunk (matches stock perl tolerance). use open ':encoding(UTF-8)' switches <> to UTF-8 with U+FFFD replacement.

---

[0x03] PARALLEL PRIMITIVES

Each parallel block runs in its own interpreter context with captured lexical scope — no data races. Use mysync for shared counters. Optional progress => 1 enables an animated stderr bar (TTY) or per-item log lines (non-TTY).

# map / grep / sort / fold / for in parallel (list can be piped in)
# Three surface forms work for pmap/pgrep/pfor/pcache/pflat_map:
#   pmap { $_ * 2 } @list              # block form  ($_ = element)
#   pmap $_ * 2, @list                 # expression form
#   pmap double, @list                 # bare-fn form (sub double { $_0 * 2 })
my @doubled = @data |> pmap $_ * 2 , progress => 1
my @evens   = @data |> pgrep $_ % 2 == 0
my @sorted  = @data |> psort { $a <=> $b }
my $sum     = @numbers |> preduce { $a + $b }
pfor process, @items
my @hashes  = pmap sha256, @blobs, progress => 1  # bare-fn

# streaming parallel — lazy iterators, bounded memory, output as it completes
range(0, 1e9) |> pmaps { expensive($_) } |> take 10 |> ep  # stops after 10 results
range(0, 1e6) |> pgreps { is_prime($_) } |> ep              # parallel filter, streaming
range(0, 1e6) |> pflat_maps { [$_, $_ * 10] } |> ep         # parallel flat-map, streaming

# fused map+reduce, chunked map, memoized map, init fold
my $sum2     = @nums |> pmap_reduce { $_ * 2 } { $a + $b }
my @squared  = @million |> pmap_chunked 1000 { $_ ** 2 }
my @once     = @inputs |> pcache expensive
my $hist     = @words |> preduce_init {}, { my ($acc, $x) = @_; $acc->{$x}++; $acc }

# fan — run a block or fn N times in parallel ($_/$_0 = index 0..N-1)
fan 8, work  # bare-fn form: fan N, FUNC
fan work, progress => 1  # uses rayon pool size (`stryke -j`)
fan 8 { work($_) }  # block form
fan { work($_) }  # block form, pool-sized
my @r = fan_cap 8, compute  # capture results in index order
my @r = fan_cap 8 { $_ * $_ }  # block form, capture

# pipelines — sequential or rayon-backed; same chain methods
my @r = (@data |> pipeline)->filter({ $_ > 10 })->map({ $_ * 2 })->take(100)->collect
### or 
my @r = @data |> pipeline |> filter $_ > 10 |> map $_ * 2 |> take 100 |> collect
my @r = @data |> par_pipeline |> filter  $_ > 10 |> map $_ * 2 |> collect

# multi-stage: batch (each stage drains list before next)
my $n = par_pipeline(
    source  => { readline(STDIN) },
    stages  => [ parse_json, transform ],
    workers => [4, 2],
    buffer  => 256,
)

# multi-stage: streaming (bounded crossbeam channels, concurrent stages, order NOT preserved)
my @r = ((1..1_000) |> par_pipeline_stream)->filter({ $_ > 500 })->map({ $_ * 2 })->collect()
## or
my @r = (1..1_000) |> par_pipeline_stream |> filter $_ > 500 |> map $_ * 2 |> collect

# channels + Go-style select
my ($tx, $rx) = pchannel(128)  # bounded; pchannel() is unbounded
my ($val, $idx) = pselect($rx1, $rx2)
my ($v, $i)     = pselect($rx1, $rx2, timeout => 0.5)  # $i == -1 on timeout

# barrier — N workers rendezvous
my $sync = barrier(3)
fan 3 { $sync->wait; p "all arrived" }

# persistent thread pool (avoids per-task spawn from pmap/pfor)
my $pool = ppool(4)
$pool->submit({ heavy_work($_) }) for @tasks
my @results = $pool->collect()

# parallel file IO
my @logs = "**/*.log" |> glob_par  # rayon recursive glob
par_lines "./big.log", { p if /ERROR/ }  # mmap + chunked line scan
par_walk  ".", { p if /\.rs$/ }  # parallel directory walk
par_sed qr/\bfoo\b/, "bar", @paths  # parallel in-place sed (returns # changed)
my @rs = par_find_files "src", "*.rs"  # parallel recursive file search by glob
my $n  = par_line_count @rs  # parallel line count across files

# native file watcher (notify crate: inotify/kqueue/FSEvents)
watch  "/tmp/x", p
pwatch "logs/*", heavy

# control thread count
stryke -j 8 -e '@data |> pmap heavy'

# distributed pmap over an SSH worker pool — see [0x10] for details
my $cluster = cluster(["build1:8", "build2:16"])
my @r = @huge |> pmap_on $cluster heavy

Parallel capture safety — workers set Scope::parallel_guard after restoring captured lexicals. Assignments to captured non-mysync aggregates are rejected at runtime; mysync, package-qualified names, and topics ($_/$a/$b) are allowed. pmap/pgrep treat block failures as undef/false; use pfor when failures must abort.

Nested implicit-param matrix _N<<<<< — world-first. Every block-form closure iter (grep { ... }, map { ... }, sort { ... }, ~> @arr map { ... }, fi { ... }, etc.) shifts an outer-topic chain across all positional slots, up to 5 frames back. Read the previous topic with _<, two back with _<<, up to five back with _<<<<<. Same for every positional slot: _1<<, _2<<<<<, etc. No other language has this — Clojure %, Scala _, Ruby _1, Swift $0, Raku $^a all stop at the current scope.

{} is the shift trigger. EXPR-form HOFs (grep EXPR, LIST, map EXPR, LIST, reject EXPR, LIST, grepv EXPR, LIST, |> grep EXPR, etc. — anything with no braces) do not shift the chain. The expression is evaluated in the surrounding lexical scope with $_/$_0 rebound per iter; everything else (including all positional aliases $_1, $_2, …) stays put. This makes higher-order combinator patterns work without chain-ascent boilerplate:

# Strain (Exercism): keep elements matching the predicate. The fn's args
# are `$_` (arrayref) and `$_1` (predicate coderef). EXPR-form `grep _1, …`
# evaluates `_1` per iter — and since there's no `{}` block, slot 1 stays
# bound to the caller's $_1 (the coderef), which the runtime then dispatches.
fn Exercism::Strain::keep    = [grep  _1, @$_]
fn Exercism::Strain::discard = [grepv _1, @$_]   # grepv ≡ reject (inverse)

The rule reads the same in both directions: {} → shift, no {} → no shift. Block boundaries are scope boundaries; expression positions are not.

Indexed-ascent shortcut _<N — past depth 2, counting chevrons gets error-prone. The lexer accepts _<N (where N is a positive integer) as syntactic sugar for _<<<...< (N chevrons). So _<3 ≡ _<<< (more readable past depth 2), _<5 ≡ _<<<<<, etc. Mixed forms work too: $_2<3 reaches positional 2 from 3 frames up. Disambiguator: _<3> and _<3:5> remain string-slice syntax; _<3 (without trailing > or :) is indexed-ascent.

The matrix:

slot 0 — bare `_` aliases `_0`, FOUR equivalent spellings per level:
  current  _    ≡ $_    ≡ _0    ≡ $_0
  1 up     _<   ≡ $_<   ≡ _0<   ≡ $_0<       (also: _<1, $_<1)
  2 up     _<<  ≡ $_<<  ≡ _0<<  ≡ $_0<<      (also: _<2, $_<2)
  3 up     _<<< ≡ $_<<< ≡ _0<<< ≡ $_0<<<     (also: _<3, $_<3)
  4 up     _<<<<  ≡ $_<<<<  ≡ _0<<<<  ≡ $_0<<<<   (also: _<4, $_<4)
  5 up     _<<<<< ≡ $_<<<<< ≡ _0<<<<< ≡ $_0<<<<<  (also: _<5, $_<5)

slot N ≥ 1 — two spellings per level (plus indexed form):
  current  _N   ≡ $_N
  1 up     _N<  ≡ $_N<        (also: _N<1, $_N<1)
  ...
  5 up     _N<<<<< ≡ $_N<<<<<  (also: _N<5, $_N<5)

The < glyph is iconic: "back/before/earlier" is universal in math and ASCII (<-, <<, version comparison). _ is "the topic" (Perl $_, Ruby _1, Scala _). Composition tells you the meaning at sight.

# Rolling difference — no temp var, no naming.
~> @prices map { _ - _< }
# Python: [prices[i]-prices[i-1] for i in range(1,len(prices))] — 41 chars
# Ruby:   prices.each_cons(2).map { |a,b| b-a }              — 38 chars
# stryke: ~> @prices map { _ - _< }                          — 24 chars

# 3-arg sub, reach back 4 closures from inside nested maps:
fn deep($_0, $_1, $_2) {
    ~> 1:1 map { ~> 1:1 map { ~> 1:1 map { ~> 1:1 map {
        # _N<<<< reads the Nth positional of `deep`
        _0<<<< . "," . _1<<<< . "," . _2<<<<      # "alpha,beta,gamma"
    } } } }
}
deep("alpha", "beta", "gamma")

# Cartesian-style sum across two arrays, golf form:
~> @outer pmap { ~> @inner pmap { _< + _ } } sum
# (`_<` rolls through previous topics across iter boundaries — same primitive
# powers running totals, moving averages, deltas)

# fan / fan_cap also rebind topic per worker:
$_ = 100
my @r = fan_cap 3 { $_< }                      # (100, 100, 100)
fan_cap 1 { $_ = "inner"; "$_< $_" }           # "outer inner"
$_ = 50; ~> 10 >{ $_ + $_< }                   # 60

Implementation: strykelang/scope.rs::set_closure_args shifts every active slot's chain on each frame entry; strykelang/lexer.rs lexes _<+, _N<+, and the indexed-ascent forms _<N/_M<N (bare and $-prefixed) as single tokens. Depth cap is hardcoded at 5 levels (debug_assert!(level <= 5) in scope.rs::topic_slot_key); past depth 5 the chain falls off and reads return undef. Bumping the cap is a one-line change.

Mutation semantics — topic variants align with |param| block params

A user writing $_ = ... or $_< = ... inside a block mutates only the current frame. Topic variants follow the exact same rule as |$x| block params and inner my $x: writes do not leak outward. The chain shift on the next frame entry remains purely a function of the outer topic value, never the inner mutation.

form	mutation propagates to outer scope?	mechanism
|$x| block param	NO — frame-local	param binding lives in callee frame
my $x inside a block	NO — frame-local	new lexical binding in current frame
my $x outer + inner closure writes $x	rejected at compile time	DESIGN-001 (closures capture by value)
mysync $x outer + inner closure writes $x	YES — explicit Arc<Mutex> opt-in	shared cell, atomic compound ops
our $x	YES — package-global by design	symbol table, not lexical
$_, $_<, $_<<, $_<<<, $_<<<<, $_<<<<<	NO — frame-local	Frame::set_scalar_raw bypasses CaptureCell write-through
$_0, $_1, … $_N and $_N<+ chain forms	NO — frame-local	same path as topic-chain writes

Implementation: strykelang/scope.rs::Scope::set_scalar recognizes topic-variant names via is_topic_variant_name (regex ^_[0-9]*<*$) and routes the write through Frame::set_scalar_raw, which bypasses the CaptureCell write-through that named outer-scope my variables use. Result: $_< always reads the lexical outer-scope topic of the current closure, never an in-flight mutation from a sibling iteration.

---

[0x04] SHARED STATE (mysync)

mysync declares variables backed by Arc<Mutex> shared across parallel blocks. Compound ops (++, +=, .=, |=, &=) hold the lock for the full read-modify-write cycle — fully atomic.

mysync $counter = 0
fan 10000 { $counter++ }  # always exactly 10000
print $counter

mysync @results
(1..100) |> pfor { push @results, $_ * $_ }

mysync %histogram
(0..999) |> pfor { $histogram{$_ % 10} += 1 }

# deque() and heap(...) already use Arc<Mutex<...>> internally
mysync $q  = deque()
mysync $pq = heap { $a <=> $b }

For mysync scalars holding a Set, |/& are union/intersection. Without mysync, each thread gets an independent copy.

---

[0x05] NATIVE DATA SCRIPTING

Area	Builtins
HTTP (ureq)	fetch, fetch_json, fetch_async, await fetch_async_json, par_fetch, serve
JSON (serde_json)	json_encode, json_decode
CSV (csv)	csv_read (AoH), csv_write, par_csv_read
DataFrame	dataframe(path) → columnar; ->filter, ->group_by, ->sum, ->nrow, ->ncol
SQLite (rusqlite, bundled)	sqlite(path) → ->exec, ->query, ->last_insert_rowid
TOML / YAML	toml_decode, yaml_decode
Crypto	sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512, md5, hmac, hmac_sha256, crc32, uuid, base64_encode/decode, hex_encode/decode
Compression (flate2, zstd)	gzip, gunzip, zstd, zstd_decode
Time (chrono, chrono-tz)	datetime_utc, datetime_from_epoch, datetime_parse_rfc3339, datetime_strftime, datetime_now_tz, datetime_format_tz, datetime_parse_local, datetime_add_seconds, elapsed
Structs / Enums / Classes / Types	struct Point { x => Float }, enum Color { Red, Green } (exhaustive match), class Dog extends Animal { breed: Str; fn bark { } }, abstract class/final class, trait Printable { fn to_str } (enforced, default method inheritance), pub/priv/prot visibility, static count: Int, BUILD/DESTROY, final fn, methods()/superclass()/does(), static::method(), typed my $x : Int
Cyberpunk Terminal Art	cyber_city (neon cityscape), cyber_grid (synthwave perspective grid), cyber_rain/matrix_rain (digital rain), cyber_glitch/glitch_text (text corruption), cyber_banner/neon_banner (block-letter banners), cyber_circuit (circuit board), cyber_skull, cyber_eye — all output ANSI-colored Unicode art

my $data = "https://api.example.com/users/1" |> fetch_json
p $data->{name}

# Built-in HTTP server — one-liner web API
serve 8080, fn ($req) {
    # $req = { method, path, query, headers, body, peer }
    my $data = +{ path => $req->{path}, method => $req->{method} }
    status => 200, body => json_encode($data)
}
# or with workers: serve 8080, $handler, { workers => 16 }
# JSON content-type auto-detected; undef returns 404

my @rows = "data.csv" |> csv_read
my $df   = "data.csv" |> dataframe
my $db   = "app.db" |> sqlite
$db->exec("CREATE TABLE t (id INTEGER, name TEXT)")

# ─── Structs ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
# Declaration: typed fields, optional defaults, or bare (Any type)
struct Point { x => Float, y => Float }
struct Point { x => Float = 0.0, y => Float = 0.0 }  # with defaults
struct Pair { key, value }  # untyped (Any)

# Construction: function-call, positional, or traditional ->new
my $p = Point(x => 1.5, y => 2.0)  # function-call with named args
my $p = Point(1.5, 2.0)  # positional (declaration order)
my $p = Point->new(x => 1.5, y => 2.0)  # traditional OO style
my $p = Point()  # uses defaults if defined

# Field access: getter (0 args) or setter (1 arg)
p $p->x  # 1.5 — getter
$p->x(3.0)  # setter
p $p->x  # 3.0

# User-defined methods
struct Circle {
    radius => Float,
    fn area { 3.14159 * $self->radius ** 2 }
    fn scale($factor: Float) {
        Circle(radius => $self->radius * $factor)
    }
}
my $c = Circle(radius => 5)
p $c->area  # 78.53975
p $c->scale(2)  # Circle(radius => 10)

# Built-in methods
my $q = $p->with(y => 5)  # functional update — new instance
my $h = $p->to_hash  # { x => 3.0, y => 5 }
my @f = $p->fields  # (x, y)
my $c = $p->clone  # deep copy

# Smart stringify — print shows struct name and fields
p $p  # Point(x => 3, y => 2)

# Structural equality — compares all fields
my $a = Point(1, 2)
my $b = Point(1, 2)
p $a == $b  # 1 (equal)
# ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

# ─── Enums (algebraic data types) ───────────────────────────────────
# Declaration: variants with optional typed data
enum Color { Red, Green, Blue }  # unit variants (no data)
enum Maybe { None, Some => Any }  # Some carries any value
enum Result { Ok => Int, Err => Str }  # typed data per variant

# Construction: Enum::Variant() syntax
my $c = Color::Red()  # unit variant
my $m = Maybe::Some(42)  # variant with data
my $r = Result::Err("not found")  # typed variant

# Smart stringify — shows enum name, variant, and data
p $c  # Color::Red
p $m  # Maybe::Some(42)
p $r  # Result::Err(not found)

# Type checking on variants with data
# Result::Ok("bad")  # ERROR: expected Int
# Maybe::Some()  # ERROR: requires data
# Color::Red(42)  # ERROR: does not take data

# Exhaustive enum matching — all variants must be covered or use `_` catch-all
my $light = Light::On()
my $s = match ($light) {
    Light::On()  => "on",
    Light::Off() => "off",
}
# Missing a variant without `_` → error:
# match ($c) { Color::Red() => "r" }  # ERROR: missing variant(s) Green, Blue
# ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

# ─── Cyberpunk Terminal Art ────────────────────────────────────────
p cyber_banner("STRYKE")          # large neon block-letter banner
p cyber_city()                    # procedural neon cityscape (80x24)
p cyber_city(120, 40, 99)         # custom width, height, seed
p cyber_grid(80, 20)              # synthwave perspective grid
p cyber_rain(80, 24)              # matrix-style digital rain
p cyber_glitch("BREACH", 7)       # glitch-distort text (intensity 1-10)
p cyber_circuit(60, 20)           # circuit board with traces and nodes
p cyber_skull()                   # neon skull (or "large" for big version)
p cyber_eye("large")              # all-seeing eye motif
# All output ANSI-colored Unicode — pipe to `less -R` or print directly.
# ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

# ─── Classes (full OOP) ────────────────────────────────────────────
# Declaration: class Name extends Parent impl Trait { fields; methods }
class Animal {
    name: Str
    age: Int = 0
    fn speak { p "Animal: " . $self->name }
}

# Inheritance with extends
class Dog extends Animal {
    breed: Str = "Mixed"
    fn bark { p "Woof! I am " . $self->name }
    fn speak { p $self->name . " barks!" }  # override
}

# Construction: named or positional
my $dog = Dog(name => "Rex", age => 5, breed => "Lab")
my $dog = Dog("Rex", 5, "Lab")  # positional

# Field access: getter (0 args) or setter (1 arg)
p $dog->name        # Rex
$dog->age(6)        # setter
p $dog->age         # 6

# Instance methods
$dog->bark()        # Woof! I am Rex
$dog->speak()       # Rex barks!

# Static methods: fn Self.name
class Math {
    fn Self.add($a, $b) { $a + $b }
    fn Self.pi { 3.14159 }
}
p Math::add(3, 4)   # 7
p Math::pi()        # 3.14159

# Traits (interfaces)
trait Printable { fn to_str }
class Item impl Printable {
    name: Str
    fn to_str { $self->name }
}

# Multiple inheritance
class C extends A, B { }

# isa checks inheritance chain
p $dog->isa("Dog")     # 1
p $dog->isa("Animal")  # 1
p $dog->isa("Cat")     # "" (false)

# Built-in methods (same as struct)
my @f = $dog->fields()       # (name, age, breed)
my $h = $dog->to_hash()      # { name => "Rex", ... }
my $d2 = $dog->with(age => 1) # functional update
my $d3 = $dog->clone()       # deep copy

# Smart stringify
p $dog  # Dog(name => Rex, age => 5, breed => Lab)

# Visibility (pub/priv/prot)
class Secret {
    pub visible: Int = 1
    priv hidden: Int = 42
    prot internal: Str = "base"         # subclass-only access
    pub fn get_hidden { $self->hidden } # internal access ok
}
class Child extends Secret {
    fn get_internal { $self->internal }  # prot: ok from subclass
}

# Abstract classes — cannot be instantiated; abstract methods enforced
abstract class Shape {
    name: Str
    fn area            # abstract method (no body) — subclasses must implement
    fn kind { "shape" } # concrete method — inherited by subclasses
}
class Circle extends Shape {
    radius: Float
    fn area { 3.14159 * $self->radius * $self->radius }
}
# Shape() → error!  Circle(name => "c", radius => 5) → ok
# class BadShape extends Shape { }  # → error: must implement abstract method `area`

# Static fields (class variables) — shared across all instances
class Counter {
    static count: Int = 0
    name: Str
    fn BUILD { Counter::count(Counter::count() + 1) }
}
my $a = Counter(name => "a")
my $b = Counter(name => "b")
p Counter::count()  # 2

# BUILD constructor hook — runs after field init, parent BUILD first
class Logger {
    log: Str = ""
    fn BUILD { $self->log("initialized") }
}

# DESTROY destructor — explicit via $obj->destroy(), child first
class Resource {
    fn DESTROY { p "cleanup" }
}
my $r = Resource()
$r->destroy()  # prints "cleanup"

# Trait enforcement — required methods checked at class definition
trait Drawable { fn draw }
# class Oops impl Drawable { }  # → error: missing required method `draw`
class Box impl Drawable {
    fn draw { "drawn" }    # satisfies trait contract
}
p Box()->does("Drawable")  # 1

# Trait default methods — inherited by implementing classes, overridable
trait Greetable {
    fn greeting { "Hello" }  # default method (has body)
    fn name                  # required method (no body)
}
class Person impl Greetable {
    n: Str
    fn name { $self->n }
    # greeting inherited from trait — Person()->greeting() returns "Hello"
}
class FormalPerson impl Greetable {
    n: Str
    fn name { $self->n }
    fn greeting { "Good day" }  # override the default
}

# Final classes — cannot be extended
final class Singleton { value: Int = 1 }
# class Bad extends Singleton { }  # → error

# Final methods — cannot be overridden
class Secure {
    final fn id { 42 }
    fn label { "secure" }  # can be overridden
}

# Reflection: methods(), superclass()
my @m = $dog->methods()     # ("speak", "bark", ...)
my @p = $dog->superclass()  # ("Animal")

# Late static binding: static::method() resolves to runtime class
class Base {
    fn class_name { static::identify() }
    fn identify { "Base" }
}
class Child extends Base {
    fn identify { "Child" }
}
Child()->class_name()  # "Child" (not "Base")

# Operator overloading for native classes
class Vec2 {
    x: Int; y: Int
    fn op_add($other) {
        Vec2(x => $self->x + $other->x, y => $self->y + $other->y)
    }
    fn op_eq($other) { $self->x == $other->x && $self->y == $other->y }
    fn stringify { "(" . $self->x . "," . $self->y . ")" }
}
my $v = Vec2(x => 1, y => 2) + Vec2(x => 3, y => 4)
p $v  # (4,6)
# Supported: op_add op_sub op_mul op_div op_mod op_pow op_concat
#            op_eq op_ne op_lt op_gt op_le op_ge op_spaceship op_cmp
#            op_neg op_bool op_abs op_numify stringify
# ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

typed my $n : Int = 42

# Typed fn parameters — runtime type checking on call
my $add = fn ($a: Int, $b: Int) { $a + $b }
p $add->(3, 4)  # 7
# $add->("x", 1)  # ERROR: sub parameter $a: expected Int

fn greet ($name: Str) { "Hello, $name!" }
p greet("world")  # Hello, world!

# stringify/str — convert any value to a parseable stryke literal
my $data = {a => [1, 2], b => "hello"}
my $s = str $data  # +{a => [1, 2], b => "hello"}
my $copy = eval $s  # round-trip via eval
p $copy->{a}[0]  # 1

# stringify works with functions (first-class serialization)
my $f = fn ($x: Int) { $x * 2 }
p str $f  # fn ($x: Int) { $x * 2; }
my $f2 = eval str $f  # round-trip: deserialize back to callable
p $f2->(21)  # 42

# streaming range — bidirectional lazy iterator
range(1, 5) |> e p                          # 1 2 3 4 5
range(5, 1) |> e p                          # 5 4 3 2 1

Sets

Native sets deduplicate by value (internal canonical keys; insertion order preserved for ->values). Use the set(LIST) builtin or Set->new(LIST); |> can supply the list. | / & are union / intersection when either side is a set (otherwise bitwise int ops).

my $s = set(1, 2, 2, 3)  # 3 members
my $t = (1, 1, 2, 4) |> set
my $u = $s | $t  # union
my $i = $s & $t  # intersection
$s->has(2)  # 1 / 0  (also ->contains / ->member)
$s->size  # count (->len / ->count)
my @v = $s->values  # array in insertion order

# mysync: compound |= and &= update shared sets (see [0x04])

---

[0x06] ASYNC / TRACE / TIMER

# async / spawn / await — lightweight structured concurrency
my $data = async { "https://example.com/" |> fetch }
my $file = spawn { "big.csv" |> \&slurp }
print await($data), await($file)

# trace mysync mutations to stderr (under fan, lines tagged with worker index)
mysync $counter = 0
trace { fan 10 { $counter++ } }

# timer / bench — wall-clock millis; bench returns "min/mean/p99"
my $ms     = timer heavy_work
my $report = bench heavy_work 1000

# eval_timeout — runs block on a worker thread; recv_timeout on main
eval_timeout 5 slow

# retry / rate_limit / every (tree interpreter only)
retry http_call times => 3, backoff => exponential
rate_limit(10, "1s") hit_api
every "500ms" tick

# generators — lazy `yield` values
my $g = gen { yield $_ for 1..5 }
my $next = $g->next  # [value, more]

---

[0x06b] AOP — BEFORE / AFTER / AROUND ADVICE

Aspect-oriented advice on user subs. Glob pointcuts, three advice kinds, proceed() for around. Same surface as zshrs's intercept builtin (zshrs/src/exec.rs), adapted to a real language: keyword statements instead of a CLI builtin.

# Before — runs before the matched sub. Sees $INTERCEPT_NAME, @INTERCEPT_ARGS.
before "fetch" { warn "calling fetch with @INTERCEPT_ARGS" }

# After — runs after. Sees $INTERCEPT_RESULT, $INTERCEPT_MS, $INTERCEPT_US.
after "fetch" { warn "fetch returned $INTERCEPT_RESULT in ${INTERCEPT_MS}ms" }

# Around — wraps. Must call proceed() to invoke the original.
around "expensive" {
    my $cached = cache_get($INTERCEPT_ARGS[0]);
    return $cached if defined $cached;
    my $r = proceed();
    cache_put($INTERCEPT_ARGS[0], $r);
    $r
}

# Glob patterns: *, ?
before "log_*"  { ... }     # any sub starting with log_
before "*"       { ... }     # every sub call

# Management
my @list = intercept_list();   # [[id, kind, pattern], ...]
intercept_remove($id);         # by id
intercept_clear();             # drop all

Semantics:

• Multiple before / after advices on the same name all fire (registration order).
• The first matching around wraps; later around matches on the same name are skipped (mirrors zshrs run_intercepts).
• around is AspectJ-style: the block's evaluated value is the call's return. proceed() runs the original and returns its value; the block can transform (proceed() + 100), forward (proceed()), or replace (omit the call and return a value directly).
• Recursion guard: calling the advised sub from inside its own advice runs the original directly without re-firing advice (no infinite loop).
• Coverage: user-defined subs only. Builtins (print, pmap, etc.) are not interceptable in v1.
• Pattern is a string literal ("foo", "log_*"); the leading keyword only commits to advice parsing when followed by a string literal, so before(...) as a normal call still works.
• Advice bodies are lowered to bytecode at compile time and dispatched through the VM (run_block_region) — the same path used by map { } / grep { } blocks. This keeps compile-time name resolution (our-qualified scalars, lexical slots) consistent inside advice and outside it. The tree-walker is banned from the advice path; see tests/tree_walker_absent_aop.rs for the source-level invariant.
• Body lowering requires the final statement to be an expression (the same constraint as map { } block lowering). Bodies that end in a literal for/while/if block, or contain a literal return, are rejected at advice-firing time with a runtime error — rewrite the body so it ends in an expression and avoids early-return.

Builtins from inside advice bodies:

• proceed() — only legal inside around; runs the original sub with the saved args, returns its value.
• intercept_list() — returns [[id, kind, pattern], ...] for all registered advices.
• intercept_remove($id) — removes one by id; returns the count removed (0 or 1).
• intercept_clear() — drops all; returns count cleared.

---

[0x07] CLI FLAGS

All stock perl flags are supported: -0, -a, -c, -C, -d, -D, -e, -E, -f, -F, -g, -h, -i, -I, -l, -m, -M, -n, -p, -s, -S, -t, -T, -u, -U, -v, -V, -w, -W, -x, -X. Perl-style single-dash (-version, -help) and GNU-style double-dash (--version, --help) long forms work. Bundled switches are expanded: -Mstrict → -M strict, -I/tmp → -I /tmp, -V:version → -V version, -lane → -l -a -n -e.

stryke-specific long flags:

Flag	Description
--lint / --check	Parse + compile bytecode without running
--disasm / --disassemble	Print bytecode disassembly to stderr before VM execution
--ast	Dump parsed AST as JSON and exit
--fmt	Pretty-print parsed Perl to stdout and exit
--profile	Wall-clock profile: per-line + per-sub timings on stderr
--flame	Flamegraph: colored terminal bars when interactive, SVG when piped (stryke --flame x.stk > flame.svg)
--no-jit	Disable Cranelift JIT (bytecode interpreter only)
--compat	Perl 5 strict-compatibility mode: disable all stryke extensions (|>, struct, enum, match, pmap, #{expr}, etc.)
--no-interop	Reject Perl-isms (sub, say, reverse, scalar, $a/$b outside sort blocks); force idiomatic stryke (fn, p, rev, len, $_0/$_1). See [0x08a]
--explain CODE	Print expanded hint for an error code (e.g. E0001)
--lsp	Language server over stdio ([0x11])
-j N / --threads N	Set number of parallel threads (rayon)
--remote-worker	Persistent cluster worker over stdio ([0x10])
--remote-worker-v1	Legacy one-shot cluster worker over stdio
build SCRIPT [-o OUT]	AOT compile script to standalone binary ([0x0D])
doc [TOPIC]	Interactive reference book with vim-style navigation (stryke doc, stryke doc pmap, stryke doc --toc)
serve [PORT] [SCRIPT]	HTTP server (default port 8000): static files (stryke serve), script (stryke serve 8080 app.stk), one-liner (stryke serve 3000 -e 'EXPR')
fmt [-i] FILE...	Format source files in place or to stdout (stryke fmt -i . formats all recursively)
check FILE...	Parse + compile without executing; report errors with file:line:col (CI/editor integration)
disasm FILE	Disassemble bytecode to stderr (learning the VM, debugging perf)
profile [--flame] [--json] FILE	Run with profiling; --flame generates SVG, -o FILE writes to file
bench [FILE|DIR]	Discover and run benchmarks from bench/ or benches/ (bench_*.stk, b_*.stk)
init [NAME]	Scaffold a new project: main.stk, lib/, bench/, t/, .gitignore
repl [--load FILE]	Start interactive REPL explicitly, with optional pre-loaded file
lsp	Start Language Server Protocol over stdio (equivalent to --lsp)
completions [SHELL]	Emit shell completions to stdout (stryke completions zsh > _stryke)
ast FILE	Dump parsed AST as JSON to stdout
prun FILE...	Run multiple script files in parallel using all cores
convert [-i] FILE...	Convert Perl source to stryke syntax with |> pipes
deconvert [-i] FILE...	Convert stryke .stk files back to standard Perl syntax

---

[0x08] SUPPORTED PERL FEATURES

Data

Scalars $x, arrays @a, hashes %h, refs \$x/\@a/\%h/\&sub, anon [...]/{...}, code refs / closures (capture enclosing lexicals), qr// regex objects, blessed references, native sets (set(LIST) / Set->new(...)), deque(), heap().

Control flow

if/elsif/else/unless, while/until, do { } while/until, C-style for, foreach, last/next/redo with labels, postfix if/unless/while/until/for, ternary, try { } catch ($err) { } finally { }, given/when/default, algebraic match (EXPR) { PATTERN [if EXPR] => EXPR, ... } (regex, array, hash, wildcard, literal patterns; bindings scoped per arm; exhaustive enum variant checking), eval_timeout SECS { ... }.

Operators

Arithmetic, string ./x, comparison (including Raku-style chained comparisons like 1 < $x < 10), eq/ne/lt/gt/cmp, logical &&/||////!/and/or/not, bitwise (|/& are set ops on native Set), assignment + compound (+=, .=, //=, …), regex =~/!~, range .. / ... (incl. flip-flop with eof), arrow ->, pipe-forward |> (stryke extension — threads the LHS as the first argument of the RHS call; see Extensions beyond stock Perl 5).

Regex engine

Three-tier compile (Rust regex → fancy-regex → PCRE2). Perl $ end anchor (no /m) is rewritten to (?:\n?\z). Match =~, dynamic $str =~ $pat, substitution s///, transliteration tr///, flags g/i/m/s/x/e/r, captures $1…$n, named groups → %+/$+{name}, \Q...\E, quotemeta, m///qr//. The /r flag (non-destructive) returns the modified string instead of the match count — auto-injected when s/// or tr/// appear as pipe-forward RHS. Bare /pat/ in statement/boolean context is $_ =~ /pat/.

Subroutines

fn name { } with optional prototype, typed parameters (fn add($a: Int, $b: Int)), default parameter values (fn greet($name = "world")), anon subs/closures, implicit return of last expression (VM), @_/shift/return, postfix return ... if COND, AUTOLOAD with $AUTOLOAD set to the FQN.

Built-ins (selected)

Category	Functions
Array	push, pop, shift, unshift, splice, splice_last (last removed — --no-interop replacement for scalar splice), rev (string / list reverse), sort, map, grep, filter, reduce, fold, fore, e, preduce, len/cnt/count (element count — replaces scalar @a), partition, min_by, max_by, zip_with, interleave, frequencies, tally, count_by, pluck, grep_v, head, tail, first
Hash	keys, values, each, delete, exists, select_keys, top, deep_clone/dclone, deep_merge/dmerge, deep_equal/deq
Functional	compose/comp, partial, curry, memoize/memo, once, constantly, complement, juxt, fnil
String	chomp, chop, length, substr, index, rindex, split, join, sprintf, printf, uc/lc/ucfirst/lcfirst, chr, ord, hex, oct, crypt, fc, pos, study, quotemeta, trim, lines, words, chars, digits, numbers, graphemes, columns, sentences, paragraphs, sections, snake_case, camel_case, kebab_case
Binary	pack, unpack (subset A a N n V v C Q q Z H x w i I l L s S f d + *), unpack_first / unpack1 / up1 (first decoded element — --no-interop replacement for scalar unpack), vec
Numeric	abs, int, sqrt, squared/sq, cubed/cb, expt(B,E), sin, cos, atan2, exp, log, rand, srand, avg, stddev, clamp, normalize, range(N, M) (lazy bidirectional)
I/O	print, p, printf, open (incl. open my $fh, files, -| / |- pipes), close, eof, readline, read, seek, tell, sysopen, sysread/syswrite/sysseek, handle methods ->print/->p/->printf/->getline/->close/->eof/->getc/->flush, slurp, input, backticks/qx{}, capture (structured: ->stdout/->stderr/->exit), pager/pg/less (pipes value into $PAGER; TTY-gated), binmode, fileno, flock, getc, select, truncate, formline, read_lines, append_file, to_file, read_json, write_json, tempfile, tempdir, xopen/xo (system open — open on macOS, xdg-open on Linux), clip/clipboard/pbcopy (copy to clipboard), paste/pbpaste (read clipboard)
Directory	opendir, readdir, closedir, rewinddir, telldir, seekdir, files, filesf/f, fr (recursive files, lazy iterator), dirs/d, dr (recursive dirs, lazy iterator), sym_links, sockets, pipes, block_devices, char_devices
File tests	-e, -f, -d, -l, -r, -w, -s, -z, -x, -t (defaults to $_)
System	system, exec, exit, chdir, mkdir, unlink, rename, chmod, chown, chroot, stat, lstat, link, symlink, readlink, glob, glob_par, glob_match, which_all, par_sed, par_find_files, par_line_count, ppool, barrier, fork, wait, waitpid, kill, alarm, sleep, times, dump, reset
System Stats	mem_total, mem_free, mem_used, swap_total, swap_free, swap_used, disk_total, disk_free, disk_avail, disk_used, load_avg, sys_uptime, page_size, os_version, os_family, endianness, pointer_width, proc_mem/rss
Sockets	socket, bind, listen, accept, connect, send, recv, shutdown, socketpair
Network	gethostbyname, gethostbyaddr, getpwnam, getpwuid, getpwent/setpwent/endpwent, getgrnam, getgrgid, getgrent/setgrent/endgrent, getprotobyname, getprotobynumber, getservbyname, getservbyport
SysV IPC	msgctl, msgget, msgsnd, msgrcv, semctl, semget, semop, shmctl, shmget, shmread, shmwrite (stubs — runtime error)
Type	defined, undef, ref, bless, tied, untie, type_of, byte_size
Serialization	to_json, to_csv, to_toml, to_yaml, to_xml, to_html, to_markdown, to_table/tbl, ddump, stringify/str, json_encode/json_decode
Visualization	sparkline/spark, bar_chart/bars, flame/flamechart, histo, gauge, spinner, spinner_start/spinner_stop
Control	die, warn, eval, do, require, caller, wantarray, goto LABEL, continue { } on loops, prototype
Number Theory	prime_factors, divisors, num_divisors, sum_divisors, is_perfect, is_abundant, is_deficient, collatz_length, collatz_sequence, lucas, tribonacci, nth_prime, primes_up_to/sieve, next_prime, prev_prime, triangular_number, pentagonal_number, is_pentagonal, perfect_numbers, twin_primes, goldbach, prime_pi, totient_sum, subfactorial, bell_number, partition_number, multinomial, is_smith, aliquot_sum, abundant_numbers, deficient_numbers
Statistics	skewness, kurtosis, linear_regression, moving_average, exponential_moving_average, coeff_of_variation, standard_error, normalize_array, cross_entropy, euclidean_distance, minkowski_distance, mean_absolute_error, mean_squared_error, median_absolute_deviation, winsorize, weighted_mean
Geometry	area_circle, area_triangle, area_rectangle, area_trapezoid, area_ellipse, circumference, perimeter_rectangle, perimeter_triangle, polygon_area, sphere_volume, sphere_surface, cylinder_volume, cone_volume, heron_area, point_distance, midpoint, slope, triangle_hypotenuse, degrees_to_compass
Financial	npv, depreciation_linear, depreciation_double, cagr, roi, break_even, markup, margin, discount, tax, tip
Encoding	morse_encode/morse, morse_decode, nato_phonetic, int_to_roman, roman_to_int, binary_to_gray, gray_to_binary, pig_latin, atbash, braille_encode, phonetic_digit, to_emoji_num
Color	hsl_to_rgb, rgb_to_hsl, hsv_to_rgb, rgb_to_hsv, color_blend, color_lighten, color_darken, color_complement, color_invert, color_grayscale, random_color, ansi_256, ansi_truecolor, color_distance
Constants	pi, tau, phi, epsilon, speed_of_light, gravitational_constant, planck_constant, avogadro_number, boltzmann_constant, elementary_charge, electron_mass, proton_mass, i64_max, i64_min, f64_max, f64_min
Matrix	matrix_transpose, matrix_inverse, matrix_hadamard, matrix_power, matrix_flatten, matrix_from_rows, matrix_map, matrix_sum, matrix_max, matrix_min
DSP / Signal	convolution, autocorrelation, fft_magnitude, zero_crossings, peak_detect
Algorithms	next_permutation, is_balanced_parens, eval_rpn, merge_sorted, binary_insert, reservoir_sample, run_length_encode_str, run_length_decode_str, range_expand, range_compress, group_consecutive_by, histogram, bucket, clamp_array, normalize_range
Validation	luhn_check, is_valid_hex_color, is_valid_cidr, is_valid_mime, is_valid_cron, is_valid_latitude, is_valid_longitude
Text	ngrams, bigrams, trigrams, char_frequencies, is_anagram, is_pangram, mask_string, chunk_string, camel_to_snake, snake_to_camel, collapse_whitespace, remove_vowels, remove_consonants, strip_html, metaphone, double_metaphone, initials, acronym, superscript, subscript, leetspeak, zalgo, sort_words, unique_words, word_frequencies, string_distance, string_multiply
Misc	fizzbuzz, roman_numeral_list, look_and_say, gray_code_sequence, sierpinski, mandelbrot_char, game_of_life_step, tower_of_hanoi, pascals_triangle, truth_table, base_convert, roman_add, haversine, bearing, bmi, bac_estimate

Perl-compat highlights

• OOP — @ISA (incl. our @ISA outside main), C3 MRO (live, not cached), $obj->SUPER::method. tie for scalars/arrays/hashes with TIESCALAR/TIEARRAY/TIEHASH, FETCH/STORE, plus EXISTS/DELETE on tied hashes. tied returns the underlying object; untie removes the tie.

• use overload — 'op' => 'method' or \&handler; binary dispatch with (invocant, other), nomethod, unary neg/bool/abs, "" for stringification, fallback => 1.

• $? / $| — packed POSIX status from system/backticks/pipe close; autoflush on print/printf.

• $. — undef until first successful read, then last-read line count.

• print/p/printf with no args — uses $_ (and printf's format defaults to $_).

• Bareword statement — name; calls a scwub with @_ = ($_).

• Typeglobs — *foo = \&bar, *lhs = *rhs copies sub/scalar/array/hash/IO slots; package-qualified *Pkg::name supported.

• %SIG (Unix) — SIGINT/SIGTERM/SIGALRM/SIGCHLD as code refs; handlers run between statements/opcodes via perl_signal::poll. IGNORE and DEFAULT honored.

• format / write — partial: format NAME = ... . registers a template; pictures @<<<<, @>>>>, @||||, @####, @****, literal @@. formline populates $^A. write (no args) uses $~ to stdout. Not yet: write FILEHANDLE, $^.

• @INC / %INC / require / use — @INC is built from -I, vendor/perl, system perl's @INC (set STRYKE_NO_PERL_INC to skip), the script dir, STRYKE_INC, then .. List utilities (sum, min, max, uniq, reduce, pairs, zip, mesh, …) are stryke-native bare-name builtins implemented in Rust at strykelang/list_builtins.rs — no Perl module shim, no module to import. use Module qw(a b); honors @EXPORT_OK/@EXPORT for actual user modules. Built-in pragmas (strict, warnings, utf8, feature, open, Env) do not load files.

• chunked / windowed / fold — Use pipe-forward: LIST |> chunked(N), LIST |> windowed(N), LIST |> fold { BLOCK } (same for reduce). fold is an alias for reduce. List context → arrayrefs per chunk/window or the folded value; scalar context → chunk/window count where applicable.

  my @pairs = (1, 2, 3, 4) |> chunked(2)  # ([1,2], [3,4])
  my @slide = (1, 2, 3) |> windowed(2)  # ([1,2], [2,3])
  my @pipe  = (10, 20, 30) |> chunked(2)  # ([10,20], [30])
  my $sum   = (1, 2, 3, 4) |> fold { $a + $b }  # same as reduce
  my $cat   = qw(a b c) |> fold { $a . $b }
  

• use strict — refs/subs/vars modes (per-mode use strict 'refs' etc.). strict refs rejects symbolic derefs at runtime; strict vars requires a visible binding.

• BEGIN / UNITCHECK / CHECK / INIT / END — Perl order; ${^GLOBAL_PHASE} matches Perl.

• String interpolation — $var #{23 * 52}, $h{k}, $a[i], @a, @a[slice] (joined with $"), $#a in slice indices, $0, $1..$n. Escapes: \n \r \t \a \b \f \e \0, \x{hex}, \xHH, \u{hex}, \o{oct}, \NNN (octal), \cX (control), \N{U+hex}, \N{UNICODE NAME}, \U..\E, \L..\E, \u, \l, \Q..\E.

• __FILE__ / __LINE__ — compile-time literals.

• Heredocs <<EOF, POD skipping, shebang handling, qw()/q()/qq() with paired delimiters.

• Special variables — large set of ${^NAME} scalars pre-seeded; see SPECIAL_VARIABLES.md. Still missing vs Perl 5: English, full $^V as a version object.

Extensions beyond stock Perl 5

• Native CSV (csv_read/csv_write), columnar dataframe, embedded sqlite.

• HTTP (fetch/fetch_json/fetch_async/par_fetch), JSON (json_encode/json_decode).

• Crypto, compression, time, TOML, YAML helpers (see [0x05]).

• All parallel primitives in [0x03] (pmap, fan, pipeline, par_pipeline_stream, pchannel, pselect, barrier, ppool, glob_par, par_walk, par_lines, par_sed, par_find_files, par_line_count, pwatch, watch).

• Distributed compute ([0x10]): cluster([...]) builds an SSH worker pool; pmap_on $cluster { } @list and pflat_map_on $cluster { } @list fan a map across persistent remote workers with fault tolerance and per-job retries.

• Standalone binaries ([0x0D]): stryke build SCRIPT -o OUT bakes a script into a self-contained executable.

• Inline Rust FFI ([0x0E]): rust { pub extern "C" fn ... } blocks compile to a cdylib on first run, dlopen + register as Perl-callable subs.

• Bytecode cache ([0x0F]): single rkyv shard at ~/.stryke/scripts.rkyv — mmap + zero-copy ArchivedHashMap lookup skips lex/parse/compile on warm starts. Disable with STRYKE_CACHE=0.

• Language server ([0x11]): stryke lsp runs an LSP server over stdio with diagnostics, hover, completion.

• mysync shared state ([0x04]).

• frozen my (or const my — same thing, more familiar spelling), typed my, struct, enum, class (full OOP with extends/impl), trait, algebraic match, try/catch/finally, eval_timeout, retry, rate_limit, every, gen { ... yield }.

• Raku-style chained comparisons — 1 < $x < 10 desugars to (1 < $x) && ($x < 10) at parse time. Works with all comparison operators (<, <=, >, >=, lt, le, gt, ge) and chains of any length.

• Default parameter values — fn greet($name = "world"), fn range(@vals = (1,2,3)), fn config(%opts = (debug => 0)). Defaults evaluated at call time when argument not provided.

• Functional composition — compose, partial, curry, memoize, once, constantly, complement, juxt, fnil:

  my $f = compose(fn { $_ + 1 }, fn { $_ * 2 })
  $f(5)  # 11 (double then inc)
  
  my $add5 = partial(fn { $_[0] + $_[1] }, 5)
  $add5(3)  # 8
  
  my $cadd = curry(fn { $_[0] + $_[1] }, 2)
  $cadd(1)(2)  # 3
  
  my $fib = memoize(fn { ... })  # cached by args
  my $init = once(fn { expensive_setup() })  # called at most once
  

• Deep structure utilities — deep_clone/dclone, deep_merge/dmerge, deep_equal/deq, tally:

  my $b = deep_clone($a)  # recursive deep copy
  my $m = deep_merge(\%a, \%b)  # recursive hash merge
  deep_equal([1,2,{x=>3}], [1,2,{x=>3}])  # 1 (structural eq)
  my $t = tally("a","b","a")  # {a => 2, b => 1}
  

• Bare _ as topic shorthand — in any expression position, bare _ is equivalent to $_. Inspired by Raku's WhateverCode and Scala's placeholder syntax. Enables ultra-concise blocks: map{_*2} instead of map{$_ * 2}. The sigil-free form compresses better — no spaces needed around _ when adjacent to operators.

• Outer topic $_< — access the enclosing scope's $_ from nested blocks; up to 5 levels ($_< through $_<<<<<, or the indexed form $_<5). See [0x03].

• fore (e) — side-effect-only list iterator (like map but void, returns item count). Works with { BLOCK } LIST, blockless e EXPR, LIST, and pipe-forward |> e p. Use for print/log/accumulator loops.

• Pipe-forward |> — parse-time desugaring (zero runtime cost); threads the LHS as the first argument of the RHS call, left-associative. map, grep/filter, sort, and e accept blockless expressions on the RHS of |> — no { } required for simple transforms:

  # chain HTTP fetch → JSON decode → jq filter
  my @titles = $url |> fetch_json |> json_decode |> json_jq '.articles[].title'
  
  # blockless list pipelines — no braces needed for simple expressions
  files |> filter /[a-e]/ |> e -f $_ && system("cat $_")
  "a".."z" |> map uc |> e p                      # A B C … Z
  "a".."z" |> grep /[aeiou]/ |> e p              # a e i o u
  "a".."z" |> filter 't' |> e p                  # t  (literal = equality test)
  1..10 |> filter $_ > 5 |> sort |> e p      # blocks still work
  1..5 |> map $_ * $_ |> join "," |> p  # 1,4,9,16,25
  
  # e — side-effect-only iteration (like map but void, returns count)
  qw(apple banana cherry) |> grep /^a/ |> map uc |> e p  # APPLE
  
  # unary builtins — `x |> length`, `x |> uc`, `x |> sqrt`, etc.
  "hello" |> length |> p  # 5
  16 |> sqrt |> p  # 4
  "ff" |> hex |> p  # 255
  
  # bareword on RHS becomes a unary call: `x |> f` → `f(x)`
  # call on RHS prepends: `x |> f(a, b)` → `f(x, a, b)`
  # map/grep/filter/sort/join/reduce/fold/e — LHS fills the list slot
  # chunked/windowed — `LIST |> chunked(N)` prepends the list before the size
  # scalar on RHS: `x |> $cr` → `$cr->(x)`
  
  # regex ops in pipelines — s///, tr///, and m// work as RHS of |>
  # s/// and tr/// auto-inject /r so the modified string flows through:
  "hello world" |> s/world/perl/  |> p  # hello perl
  "hello world" |> tr/a-z/A-Z/   |> p  # HELLO WORLD
  
  # m//g extracts all matches as an array:
  "foo123bar456" |> /\d+/g |> p  # 123 456
  
  # full pipeline: read input, strip newlines, split, count word frequencies
  # man ls | stryke 'input |> s@\n@@g |> split |> frequencies |> ddump |> p'
  
  # extract all emails from text, deduplicate
  # cat log.txt | stryke 'input |> /[\w.]+@[\w.]+/g |> distinct |> e p'
  
  # capture groups with /g:
  "a=1 b=2" |> /(\w+)=(\w+)/g |> ddump |> p
  

  Pipeline builtins — designed for |> chains:

  # ── input / output ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
  input                                # slurp all of stdin as one string
  input($fh)                           # slurp a filehandle
  # cat data.txt | stryke 'input |> lines |> e p'
  
  # ── string → list ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
  "hello\nworld" |> lines |> ddump |> p  # ("hello", "world")
  "foo bar baz"  |> words |> ddump |> p  # ("foo", "bar", "baz")
  "hello"        |> chars |> ddump |> p  # ("h","e","l","l","o")
  "  hello  "    |> trim  |> p  # "hello"
  
  # ── case conversion ────────────────────────────────────────────────
  "helloWorld"     |> snake_case  |> p  # hello_world
  "hello_world"    |> camel_case  |> p  # helloWorld
  "Hello World"    |> kebab_case  |> p  # hello-world
  
  # ── aggregation / stats ────────────────────────────────────────────
  1 .. 100 |> avg    |> p  # 50.5
  1 .. 100 |> stddev |> p  # 28.86607…
  "hello"  |> chars  |> frequencies |> ddump |> p
  # { h => 1, e => 1, l => 2, o => 1 }
  
  # ── frequencies + top ──────────────────────────────────────────────
  "the quick brown fox" |> chars |> frequencies |> top 3 |> ddump |> p
  # top 3 chars by count
  
  # ── count_by { BLOCK } LIST ────────────────────────────────────────
  1 .. 20 |> count_by { $_ % 2 == 0 ? "even" : "odd" } |> ddump |> p
  # { odd => 10, even => 10 }
  
  # ── numeric transforms ─────────────────────────────────────────────
  1 .. 10  |> clamp 3, 7    |> ddump |> p  # 3 3 3 4 5 6 7 7 7 7
  1 .. 5   |> normalize     |> ddump |> p  # 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
  
  # ── inverse grep (regex) ───────────────────────────────────────────
  1 .. 10 |> grep_v "^[35]$" |> ddump |> p  # removes 3 and 5
  
  # ── hash manipulation ──────────────────────────────────────────────
  my $h = {a => 1, b => 2, c => 3}
  $h |> select_keys "a", "c" |> ddump |> p  # { a => 1, c => 3 }
  
  # ── pluck key from list of hashrefs ────────────────────────────────
  my @people = ({name=>"Alice",age=>30}, {name=>"Bob",age=>25})
  @people |> pluck "name" |> ddump |> p  # ("Alice", "Bob")
  
  # ── serialization ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
  my $data = {a => 1, b => [2,3]}
  $data |> to_json |> p  # {"a":1,"b":[2,3]}
  @people |> to_csv |> p  # CSV with headers
  my $cfg = {title => "My App", package => {name => "myapp", version => "1.0"}}
  $cfg |> to_toml |> p  # TOML with [package] table
  $data |> to_yaml |> p  # YAML with --- header
  $data |> to_xml  |> p  # XML with <root> wrapper
  fr |> map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} |> th |> to_file("report.html") |> xopen  # cyberpunk HTML table → browser
  fr |> map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} |> tmd |> to_file("report.md") |> xopen  # GFM Markdown table → viewer
  # same pipelines in ~> syntax:
  ~> fr map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} th to_file($_, "report.html") xopen
  ~> fr map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} tmd to_file($_, "report.md") xopen
  fr |> map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} |> tbl |> p                      # plain-text aligned table
  fr |> map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} |> tmd |> clip                   # markdown table → clipboard
  
  # ── data visualization ─────────────────────────────────────────────
  # sparkline — inline Unicode trend line from numbers
  (3,7,1,9,4,2,8,5) |> spark |> p  # ▃▆▁█▄▂▇▅
  map { int(rand(100)) } 1..20 |> spark |> p  # random sparkline
  
  # bar_chart (bars) — horizontal colored bars from hashref
  qw(a b a c a b) |> freq |> bars |> p  # word frequency bars
  cat("Cargo.toml") |> words |> freq |> bars |> p  # word freq from file
  fr |> map { path_ext($_) } |> freq |> bars |> p  # file extension breakdown
  
  # histo — vertical histogram, top N by count
  cat("Cargo.toml") |> chars |> freq |> histo |> p  # character distribution
  map { int(rand(10)) } 1..100 |> freq |> histo |> p  # dice roll distribution
  
  # to_table (tbl) — plain-text column-aligned table with box drawing
  qw(a b a c a b) |> freq |> tbl |> p  # freq as table
  fr |> map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} |> tbl |> p  # file listing table
  fr |> map +{name => $_, ext => path_ext($_)} |> tbl |> p  # files with extensions
  
  # flame — terminal flamechart from nested hashrefs
  flame({main => {parse => 30, eval => {compile => 15, run => 45}}, init => 10}) |> p
  cat("Cargo.toml") |> chars |> freq |> flame |> p  # flat flame from char freq
  
  # gauge — single-value progress bar with color coding
  p gauge(0.73)  # [██████████████████████░░░░░░░░] 73%
  p gauge(45, 100)  # value/max form
  fr |> cnt |> gauge($_, 500) |> p  # file count vs target
  
  # spinner — animated braille spinner while block runs
  my $r = spinner "loading" { sleep 2; 42 }  # returns block result
  my $data = spinner "fetching" { fetch_json($url) }  # wrap any slow operation
  # spinner_start / spinner_stop — manual control for multi-step work
  my $s = spinner_start("processing")
  do_step1(); do_step2(); do_step3()
  spinner_stop($s)
  
  # clip — copy pipeline output to clipboard
  fr |> map +{name => $_, size => format_bytes(size)} |> tmd |> clip  # markdown table → clipboard
  cat("Cargo.toml") |> words |> freq |> tbl |> clip  # table → clipboard
  
  # combine charts: same data, multiple views
  my %f = %{cat("Cargo.toml") |> words |> freq}
  %f |> bars |> p  # horizontal bars
  %f |> histo |> p  # vertical histogram
  %f |> tbl |> p  # aligned table
  %f |> flame |> p  # flamechart
  values %f |> spark |> p  # inline sparkline
  
  # ~> syntax equivalents — no |> needed
  ~> qw(a b a c a b) freq bars p
  ~> qw(a b a c a b) freq histo p
  ~> qw(a b a c a b) freq tbl p
  ~> (3,7,1,9,4) spark p
  
  # ── inline ANSI colors ─────────────────────────────────────────────
  p "#{red}ERROR#{off} #{green_bold}OK#{off}"  # color names as #{} builtins
  p "#{rgb(255,100,0)}ORANGE#{off}"  # true color (24-bit)
  p "#{color256(196)}RED#{off}"  # 256-color palette
  
  # ── stringify / str — parseable stryke literals ──────────────────────
  $data |> str |> p  # +{a => 1, b => [2, 3]}
  my $fn = fn { $_ * 2 }
  $fn |> str |> p  # fn { $_ * 2; }
  range(1, 3) |> str |> p  # (1, 2, 3)
  # round-trip: str -> eval -> callable
  my $f = fn ($x: Int) { $x + 1 }
  my $f2 = $f |> str |> eval
  $f2->(5) |> p  # 6
  
  # ── partition / min_by / max_by / zip_with ─────────────────────────
  my ($yes, $no) = partition { $_ > 5 } 1..10
  my $smallest = min_by { length } @words
  my $largest  = max_by { length } @words
  my @sums = zip_with { $_0 + $_1 } [1,2,3], [10,20,30]  # 11 22 33
  
  # ── pretty-print (indented dump) ───────────────────────────────────
  my $nested = {key => [1, {nested => "val"}]}
  $nested |> ddump |> p
  
  # ── write to file (returns content for further piping) ─────────────
  my $text = "hello\nworld\n"
  $text |> to_file "/tmp/out.txt"
  
  # ── file I/O helpers ────────────────────────────────────────────────
  my @lines = read_lines "/tmp/out.txt"  # slurp file → list of lines
  append_file "/tmp/out.txt", "extra\n"  # append to file
  my $tmp = tempfile()  # create temp file, returns path
  my $dir = tempdir()  # create temp directory, returns path
  
  # ── JSON file I/O ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
  write_json "/tmp/data.json", {a => 1, b => 2}  # write hash as JSON file
  my $obj = read_json "/tmp/data.json"  # read JSON file → hashref
  
  # ── interleave ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  my @merged = interleave [1,2,3], [10,20,30]  # (1,10,2,20,3,30)
  
  # ── glob_match / which_all ──────────────────────────────────────────
  p glob_match "*.txt", "readme.txt"  # 1 (matches)
  my @bins = which_all "perl"  # all paths for "perl" in $PATH
  
  # ── zsh glob qualifiers — world's first in a scripting language ────
  # Stryke imports the full zshrs glob engine (zsh-compatible). Every
  # builtin that accepts a glob — `glob`, `glob_par`, `slurp`/`c`/`cat`,
  # `pwatch`, `par_find_files`, `<*.txt>`, … — applies the qualifiers
  # without a single line of stryke-side parsing. Source of truth is
  # `zsh::glob` from `../zshrs`.
  my @dirs = glob "**(/)"          # directories only, recursive
  my @files = glob "**(.)"         # regular files only, recursive
  my @links = glob "**(@)"         # symlinks only
  my @exec = glob "**(*)"          # executable files
  my @big = glob "**(L+1024)"      # files larger than 1024 bytes
  my @recent = glob "**(om[1])"    # most recently modified, take 1
  my @safe = glob "doesnotexist*(N)"  # NULL_GLOB — empty list, no error
  
  # `c()` is a slurp; non-regular results are a hard error, by design —
  # asking to read a directory is always a bug:
  c "**(.)"   # OK: concatenated contents of every file recursively
  c "**(/)"   # ERROR: "slurp: not a regular file: ./sub"
  

  Full qualifier reference — stryke supports every zsh glob qualifier (man zshexpn, Filename Generation > Glob Qualifiers), inherited verbatim from zsh::glob:

  Family	Qualifier	Match
  type	(/) (.) (@) (=) (p) (%b) (%c) (%) (*)	dir / regular file / symlink / socket / FIFO / block-dev / char-dev / any-dev / executable
  perm (EUID)	(r) (w) (x)	readable / writable / executable
  perm (other)	(R) (W) (X) (A) (I) (E)	world r/w/x · group r/w/x
  special	(s) (S) (t)	setuid / setgid / sticky
  mode bits	(f<bits>)	exact mode-bit match, e.g. (f644)
  owner	(U) (G) (u<N>) (g<N>)	EUID / EGID / numeric uid / numeric gid
  device	(d<N>)	match by device number
  size	(L[unit]±N)	bytes default; units p k m g t; +N greater, -N less
  links	(l±N)	hard-link count
  times	(a±N) (m±N) (c±N)	atime / mtime / ctime; units s m h d w M
  sort	(o…) (O…)	asc / desc on n L l a m c d; (oN) no-sort
  select	([N]) ([N,M])	Nth / slice; combine with sort, e.g. (om[1]) newest
  flags	(N) (D) (F) (M) (T) (n)	null-glob / include dotfiles / non-empty dir / mark-dirs / list-types / numeric-sort
  eval	(e'CMD') (+func)	shell-eval predicate / function-as-test
  join	(P…) (Q…)	prefix / postfix join words around each match
  colon	(:s/PAT/REPL/) (:e) (:r) (:t) (:h) …	sed-style + tail/root/extension/head modifiers on each result path
  combinators	^ - , chain	negate / toggle follow-symlinks / OR / chained-AND

  Blockless |> rules for grep/filter: string literals test $_ eq EXPR, numbers test $_ == EXPR, regexes test $_ =~ EXPR, anything else (e.g. defined) uses standard Perl grep semantics (sets $_, evaluates expression).

  Coderef-in-block-position — wherever a { BLOCK } is accepted (grep, map, sort, first, any, all, none, take_while, drop_while, reject, partition, min_by, max_by, plus their pipe-forward variants), a coderef-shaped expression also works directly. Runtime check: if the EXPR evaluates to a code ref, it is called with the current element(s) as positional args; otherwise the value's truthiness drives filtering (or its result becomes the mapped value, comparator integer, etc.). Eliminates the { $f($_) } / { $f->($_) } boilerplate.

  my $is_big = fn ($x) { $x > 3 }
  my @r = grep $is_big, @l                # was: grep { $is_big->($_) } @l
  my @r = @l |> grep $is_big              # pipe-forward variant
  my @r = first $is_big, @l               # tier-2 builtin, no parens, no block
  my @r = take_while $is_big, @l
  
  # Sort comparators receive ($a, $b) positionally — no $a/$b global magic:
  my $cmp = fn ($a, $b) { $b <=> $a }     # or fn { _0 <=> _1 } using positional aliases
  my @s = sort $cmp @l                    # descending
  

  Threading (~>) excluded — whitespace-delimited stages can't disambiguate ~> @l grep $f from "two stages", so threading still requires { $f(_) }. Use |> for the bare-coderef form, or stay with { } blocks under ~>.

  Under --compat: dispatch is skipped, restoring Perl's "evaluate EXPR per element, filter by truthiness" semantics. A coderef value is always truthy, so grep $f, @l keeps every element under --compat.

  Precedence: |> binds looser than || but tighter than ?: / and/or/not — the slot sits between parse_ternary and parse_or_word in the parser stack. So $x + 1 |> f parses as f($x + 1), and 0 || 1 |> yes parses as yes(0 || 1). The RHS must be a call, builtin, method invocation, bareword, or coderef expression; bare binary expressions / literals on the right are a parse error (42 |> 1 + 2 is rejected).

• ~> macro (thread, t, ->>) — Clojure-inspired threading macro for clean multi-stage pipelines without repeating |>. Stages are bare function names, functions with blocks, parenthesized calls name(args) where $_ (or bare _) is the threaded-value placeholder (must appear at least once in args, can sit in any position — first, last, middle, nested), or anonymous blocks (>{} / fn {}). Use |> after ~> to continue piping. Blocks can use bare _ for maximum conciseness — map{_*2} is equivalent to map{$_ * 2}.

  # ultra-concise — bare _ eliminates sigil noise
  ~>1:10map{_*2}fi{_>5}sum p                          # 104
  
  # ~> shines with multiple block-taking functions — no |> repetition
  @data = 1..20
  ~> @data grep{_ % 2 == 0} map{_ * _} sort{$_1 <=> $_0} |> join "," |> p
  # 400,324,256,196,144,100,64,36,16,4
  
  # Compare: same pipeline with |> requires more syntax
  @data |> grep{_ % 2 == 0} |> map{_ * _} |> sort{$_1 <=> $_0} |> join "," |> p
  
  # Long data processing pipeline
  @nums = 1..100
  ~> @nums grep{_ % 3 == 0} map{_ * 2} grep{_ > 50} sort{$_1 <=> $_0} |> head 5 |> join "," |> p
  # 198,192,186,180,174
  
  # Anonymous blocks for custom transforms
  ~> 100 >{_ / 2} >{_ + 10} >{_ * 3} p  # 180
  
  # Process list of hashes
  @users = ({name=>"alice",age=>30}, {name=>"bob",age=>25}, {name=>"carol",age=>35})
  ~> @users sort{$_0->{age} <=> $_1->{age}} map{_->{name}} |> join "," |> p
  # bob,alice,carol
  
  # String processing with unary builtins
  ~> "  hello world  " trim uc p                 # HELLO WORLD
  
  # Parenthesized call stages — `_` or `$_` is the threaded-value placeholder
  fn add2 { $_0 + $_1 }
  ~> 10 add2(_, 5) p                              # add2(10, 5)        => 15
  ~> 10 add2(5, _) p                              # add2(5, 10)        => 15  (any position)
  ~> 10 add2(_, 5) add2(_, 100) p                 # chains: 15 then 115
  fn add3 { $_0 + $_1 + $_2 }
  ~> 10 add3(5, _, 10) p                          # add3(5, 10, 10)    => 25
  # `_` works inside nested expressions too:
  fn mul { $_0 * $_1 }
  ~> 10 mul(_ + 1, 2) p                           # mul(11, 2)         => 22
  
  # Reduce with $_0/$_1
  ~> (1..10) reduce { $_0 + $_1 } p              # 55
  
  # Sort and unique
  @data = (3,1,4,1,5,9,2,6,5,3)
  ~> @data sort { $_0 <=> $_1 } uniq |> join "," |> p   # 1,2,3,4,5,6,9
  

  When to use ~> vs |>:

  • ~>: Best for chains of block-taking functions (map { }, grep { }, sort { }, reduce { })
  • |>: Best for blockless expressions (map $_ * 2, grep $_ > 5) and unary functions

  # |> with blockless expressions — cleanest for simple transforms
  1..20 |> grep $_ % 2 == 0 |> map $_ * $_ |> grep $_ > 50 |> join "," |> p
  # 64,100,144,196,256,324,400
  
  # ~> with blocks — cleanest when every stage needs a block
  ~> @data map { complex($_) } grep { validate($_) } sort { $_0 cmp $_1 } |> p
  

  Stage types:

  • Bare function: ~> "hello" uc trim — applies unary builtins in sequence
  • Function with block: ~> @data map{_ * 2} grep{_ > 5} — block-taking functions (bare _ or $_)
  • Anonymous block: ~> 5 >{_ * 2} or fn { } — custom transforms

  Termination: |> ends the ~> macro: ~> @l f1 f2 f3 |> f4 parses as (~> @l f1 f2 f3) |> f4.

  Numeric/statistical pipelines:

  # Sum of squares of even numbers 1-10
  ~> (1..10) grep{_ % 2 == 0} map{_ * _} sum p                # 220
  
  # Mean of squares
  ~> (1..10) map{_ * _} mean p                                 # 38.5
  
  # Multiples of 7 up to 100, doubled, summed
  ~> (1..100) grep{_ % 7 == 0} map{_ * 2} sum p               # 1470
  
  # Sum of odd squares, sqrt, truncate
  ~> (1..50) grep{_ % 2 == 1} map{_ ** 2} sum sqrt int p      # 144
  
  # Factorial via product
  ~> (1..10) product p                                        # 3628800
  
  # Remove duplicates, then sum
  ~> (1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5,5) uniq sum p                           # 15
  
  # Shuffle, dedupe, sum (same result, random order internally)
  ~> (1..20) shuffle uniq sum p                               # 210
  
  # Statistical measures
  ~> (1..10) mean p                                           # 5.5
  ~> (1..10) median p                                         # 5.5
  ~> (1..10) stddev p                                         # 2.87228...
  

  String pipelines:

  # Full transformation
  ~> " hello world " trim uc rev lc ucfirst snake_case camel_case kebab_case to_json p
  # "d-lrow-olleh"
  
  # String list operations
  ~> ("apple","banana","cherry","date") shuffle rev minstr p  # apple
  ~> ("apple","banana","cherry","date") shuffle rev maxstr p  # date
  

  Sorting and aggregation:

  # Sort then get min/max
  ~> (5,2,8,1,9,3) sort { $_0 <=> $_1 } min p                 # 1
  ~> (5,2,8,1,9,3) sort { $_0 <=> $_1 } max p                 # 9
  
  # Pairs: extract keys and values
  ~> (1,2,3,4,5,6) pairkeys |> join "," |> p                  # 1,3,5
  ~> (1,2,3,4,5,6) pairvalues |> join "," |> p                # 2,4,6
  

  Compare with |> syntax (same result, more typing):

  # ~> version (bare _)
  ~> (1..10) grep{_ % 2 == 0} map{_ * _} sum p
  
  # |> version
  (1..10) |> grep{_ % 2 == 0} |> map{_ * _} |> sum |> p
  

  Language comparison — the same 10-stage pipeline:

  # stryke: 1 line, reads left-to-right, no noise
  ~> " hello world " trim uc rev lc ucfirst snake_case camel_case kebab_case to_json p
  

  # Perl 5: needs CPAN modules, verbose method chains
  use String::CamelCase qw(camelize decamelize)
  use JSON
  my $s = " hello world "
  $s =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g  # trim
  $s = uc($s)
  $s = reverse($s)
  $s = lc($s)
  $s = ucfirst($s)
  $s =~ s/([A-Z])/_\l\$1/g; $s =~ s/^_//  # snake_case (manual)
  $s = camelize($s)  # camel_case (CPAN)
  $s =~ s/([A-Z])/-\l\$1/g; $s =~ s/^-//  # kebab_case (manual)
  print encode_json($s), "\n"
  

  // JavaScript: no built-in case converters, needs helper functions
  const snakeCase = s => s.replace(/([A-Z])/g, '_\$1').toLowerCase().replace(/^_/, '');
  const camelCase = s => s.replace(/_([a-z])/g, (_, c) => c.toUpperCase());
  const kebabCase = s => s.replace(/([A-Z])/g, '-\$1').toLowerCase().replace(/^-/, '');
  const ucfirst = s => s.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + s.slice(1);
  const rev = s => s.split('').reverse().join('');
  
  let s = " hello world ";
  s = s.trim();
  s = s.toUpperCase();
  s = rev(s);
  s = s.toLowerCase();
  s = ucfirst(s);
  s = snakeCase(s);
  s = camelCase(s);
  s = kebabCase(s);
  console.log(JSON.stringify(s));
  

  # Python 3: no built-in case converters, needs helper functions
  import json
  import re
  
  def snake_case(s): return re.sub(r'([A-Z])', r'_\1', s).lower().lstrip('_')
  def camel_case(s): return re.sub(r'_([a-z])', lambda m: m.group(1).upper(), s)
  def kebab_case(s): return re.sub(r'([A-Z])', r'-\1', s).lower().lstrip('-')
  
  s = " hello world "
  s = s.strip()
  s = s.upper()
  s = s[::-1]
  s = s.lower()
  s = s[0].upper() + s[1:]  # ucfirst
  s = snake_case(s)
  s = camel_case(s)
  s = kebab_case(s)
  print(json.dumps(s))
  

  stryke: 1 line. Perl 5: 10+ lines + CPAN. JavaScript: 15+ lines. Python: 15+ lines.

  Lisp hell — without |>, the same pipeline becomes unreadable:

  # stryke with |> : reads left-to-right
  " hello world " |> trim |> uc |> rev |> lc |> ucfirst |> rev |> snake_case |> camel_case |> kebab_case |> rev |> uc |> lc |> trim |> to_json |> p
  # "d-lrow-olleh"
  
  # Without |> : nested calls, reads inside-out (lisp hell)
  p(to_json(trim(lc(uc(rev(kebab_case(camel_case(snake_case(rev(ucfirst(lc(rev(uc(trim(" hello world ")))))))))))))))
  

  The pipe-forward operator eliminates the cognitive overhead of matching parentheses and reading inside-out.

• Short aliases — 1-3 character aliases for common functions, designed for ~>/|> pipelines:

  # Long form
  ~> " hello world " trim uc rev lc ucfirst snake_case camel_case kebab_case to_json p
  
  # Short form (same result)
  ~> " hello world " tm uc rv lc ufc sc cc kc tj p
  

  Alias	Function	Alias	Function	Alias	Function
  Thread/Pipe		String		Case
  ~>	thread	tm	trim	sc	snake_case
  p	len	length	cc	camel_case
  pr	print	ufc	ucfirst	kc	kebab_case
  		lfc	lcfirst	qm	quotemeta
  List		rev
  gr	grep	ch	chars	Serialize
  so	sort	ln	lines	tj	to_json
  rd	reduce	wd	words	ty	to_yaml
  hd	head/take			tt	to_toml
  tl	tail	Unique/Dedup		tc	to_csv
  drp	drop/skip	uq	uniq	tx	to_xml
  fl	flatten	dup	dedup	th	to_html
  cpt	compact	shuf	shuffle	tmd	to_markdown
  				dd	ddump
  				xo	xopen
  cat	slurp			Deserialize
  il	interleave	Stats		jd	json_decode
  en	enumerate	sq	sqrt	yd	yaml_decode
  wi	with_index	med	median	td	toml_decode
  chk	chunk	std	stddev	xd	xml_decode
  zp	zip	var	variance	je	json_encode
  fst	first	clp	clamp	ye	yaml_encode
  frq	frequencies	nrm	normalize	te	toml_encode
  win	windowed			xe	xml_encode
  		Crypto
  File/Path		s1	sha1	Encoding
  sl	slurp	s256	sha256	b64e	base64_encode
  wf	write_file	m5	md5	b64d	base64_decode
  rl	read_lines	uid	uuid	hxe	hex_encode
  rb	read_bytes			hxd	hex_decode
  af	append_file	HTTP		ue	url_encode
  rj	read_json	ft	fetch	ud	url_decode
  wj	write_json	ftj	fetch_json	gz	gzip
  bn	basename	fta	fetch_async	ugz	gunzip
  dn	dirname	hr	http_request	zst	zstd
  rp	realpath	pft	par_fetch	uzst	zstd_decode
  wh	which
  pwd	getcwd	CSV/Data		DateTime
  tf	tempfile	cr	csv_read	utc	datetime_utc
  tdr	tempdir	cw	csv_write	now	datetime_now_tz
  hn	gethostname	pcr	par_csv_read	dte	datetime_from_epoch
  el	elapsed	df	dataframe	dtf	datetime_strftime
  def	defined	sql	sqlite
  rss	proc_mem

• fn keyword — alias for sub. Both fn name { } and fn { } work identically to sub.

  fn double($x) { $x * 2 }
  p double(21)                    # 42
  
  my $f = fn { _ * 2 }
  p $f->(21)                      # 42
  
  # implicit zero-arg coderef — at top-level, RHS starting with bare `_` / `_N`
  # auto-wraps as `fn { ... }`. Inside any block, `_` is still the topic.
  my $g = _ * 2
  p $g->(21)                      # 42
  my $h = _ + _1
  p $h->(3, 4)                    # 7
  

• Closure arguments $_0, $_1, ... $_N — numeric closure arguments inspired by Swift. All arguments passed to any fn (named or anonymous) are available as $_0 (first), $_1 (second), $_2 (third), up to $_N for any number of arguments. These work alongside or instead of Perl's @_, $_, $a, $b. Both $_, bare _, and $_0 refer to the first argument — _ * 2, $_ * 2, and $_0 * 2 are all equivalent. Use bare _ for maximum conciseness in blocks.

  # $_0 in |> pipes (single-arg: $_0 == $_)
  (1..5) |> map { $_0 * 2 } |> join "," |> p           # 2,4,6,8,10
  (1..10) |> grep { $_0 % 2 == 0 } |> sum |> p         # 30
  
  # $_0/$_1 in |> pipes (two-arg: $_0/$_1 == $a/$b)
  (5,2,8,1) |> sort { $_0 <=> $_1 } |> join "," |> p   # 1,2,5,8
  (1..5) |> reduce { $_0 + $_1 } |> p                  # 15
  (1..5) |> reduce { $_0 * $_1 } |> p                  # 120 (factorial)
  ("banana","apple","cherry") |> sort { length($_0) <=> length($_1) } |> join "," |> p  # apple,banana,cherry
  
  # $_0/$_1 in ~> macro
  ~> (1..5) map { $_0 * 2 } sum p                  # 30
  ~> (1..5) reduce { $_0 + $_1 } p                 # 15
  ~> (1..5) reduce { $_0 * $_1 } p                 # 120
  ~> (5,2,8,1) sort { $_0 <=> $_1 } |> join "," |> p  # 1,2,5,8
  ~> (1..10) grep { $_0 % 2 == 0 } map { $_0 * $_0 } sum p  # 220
  
  # Multi-arg anonymous subs: $_0, $_1, ... $_N
  my $add3 = fn { $_0 + $_1 + $_2 }
  p $add3->(1, 2, 3)  # 6
  
  my $mul5 = fn { $_0 * $_1 * $_2 * $_3 * $_4 }
  p $mul5->(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)  # 120
  
  my $concat = fn { "$_0-$_1-$_2-$_3" }
  p $concat->("a", "b", "c", "d")  # a-b-c-d
  
  # Direct access via @_ still works
  my $join_args = fn { join("-", @_) }
  p $join_args->("x", "y", "z")  # x-y-z
  
  # Using $_0 closures with |> pipes
  my $double = fn { $_0 * 2 }
  my $triple = fn { $_0 * 3 }
  5 |> $double |> $triple |> p               # 30
  
  # Using $_0/$_1 closures in reduce
  my $add = fn { $_0 + $_1 }
  (1..5) |> reduce { $add->($_0, $_1) } |> p # 15
  
  # Using $_0/$_1/$_2 closure
  my $mul3 = fn { $_0 * $_1 * $_2 }
  p $mul3->(2, 3, 4)  # 24
  
  # Using $_0/$_1 closure as comparator
  my $cmp = fn { $_0 <=> $_1 }
  (5,2,8,1) |> sort { $cmp->($_0, $_1) } |> join "," |> p  # 1,2,5,8
  
  # User-defined functions in ~> (bare stage, no block needed)
  fn double { $_0 * 2 }
  fn triple { $_0 * 3 }
  fn add5   { $_0 + 5 }
  fn square { $_0 ** 2 }
  fn half   { $_0 / 2 }
  ~> 2 double triple add5 square half p  # 144.5
  
  fn inc  { $_0 + 1 }
  fn dec  { $_0 - 1 }
  fn dbl  { $_0 * 2 }
  fn neg  { -$_0 }
  fn abs_ { abs($_0) }
  ~> 5 inc dbl dec neg abs_ dbl inc p    # 23
  
  fn wrap  { "[$_0]" }
  fn upper { uc($_0) }
  fn trim_ { trim($_0) }
  fn rev_  { rev($_0) }
  fn bang  { "$_0!" }
  ~> "  hello  " trim_ upper rev_ wrap bang p  # [OLLEH]!
  
  # User-defined functions inside blocks
  fn is_even { $_0 % 2 == 0 }
  ~> (1..10) grep{is_even(_)} sum p  # 30
  
  ~> (1..5) map{square(_)} sum p     # 55
  
  # Multi-arg user-defined functions
  fn add  { $_0 + $_1 }
  fn mul3 { $_0 * $_1 * $_2 }
  p add(3, 4)                                # 7
  p mul3(2, 3, 4)                            # 24
  
  # Inline transforms with >{ } (arrow block)
  ~> 5 >{_ * 2} >{_ + 10} p               # 20
  ~> 100 >{_ / 2} >{_ + 10} >{_ * 3} p    # 180
  

• Block params { |$var| body } — name the block's implicit arguments with Ruby-style |$params| at the start of a block. For single-param blocks (map, grep, each), the param aliases $_. For two-param blocks (sort, reduce), they alias $a/$b. For N≥3 params, they alias $_, $_1, $_2, etc.

  # Single param — aliases $_
  map { |$n| $n * $n }, 1..5                         # 1 4 9 16 25
  grep { |$x| $x > 3 }, 1..6                         # 4 5 6
  (1..3) |> map { |$n| $n + 10 } |> join ","         # 11,12,13
  
  # Two params — aliases $a/$b
  sort { |$x, $y| $y <=> $x }, 3, 1, 4, 1, 5        # 5 4 3 1 1
  reduce { |$acc, $val| $acc + $val }, 1..10         # 55
  

stryke is not a full perl replacement: many real .pm files (especially XS modules) will not run. See PARITY_ROADMAP.md.

---

[0x08a] --no-interop MODE

--no-interop is the idiomatic-stryke-only mode: every Perl-ism that has a stryke replacement becomes a parse-time error so codebases stay on the stryke side of the language. Cargo-cult Perl idioms can't sneak in, and grep'ing for \bscalar\b / \bsub\b / \bsay\b in your sources stays signal-only.

Perl-ism	Rejected with	Use instead
sub NAME { … } / sub { … }	stryke uses 'fn' instead of 'sub' (--no-interop)	fn NAME { … } / fn { … }
say EXPR	stryke uses 'p' instead of 'say' (--no-interop)	p EXPR
reverse EXPR	stryke uses 'rev' instead of 'reverse' (--no-interop)	rev EXPR (works for both strings and lists)
$a / $b outside sort/reduce blocks	stryke uses '$_0' / '$_1' instead of '$a' (--no-interop)	$_0 / $_1 positional block params
scalar EXPR (any form)	stryke uses 'len' (also 'cnt' / 'count') instead of 'scalar' (--no-interop)	see the scalar mapping below

scalar mapping under --no-interop

scalar was overloaded with at least four distinct semantics in Perl. Under --no-interop each idiom has its own verb so the meaning is explicit at the call site:

Perl idiom	What it does	Stryke spelling
scalar @a / scalar(@$ref) / scalar @{$r}	element count	len @a / len(@$ref) / len @{$r} (aliases cnt, count) — compiles to Op::ArrayLen / Op::ArrayDerefLen fast path
scalar keys %h / scalar values %h	key / value count	len keys %h / len values %h
scalar grep { … } @a / scalar split(…) / scalar qw(…)	match / part / element count	len grep { … } @a / len split(…) / len qw(…)
scalar reverse $s	string reverse (vs. list reverse)	rev $s
scalar unpack(FMT, STR)	first decoded element	unpack_first(FMT, STR) (aliases unpack1, up1) — equivalent to head(unpack(…))
scalar splice(@a, off, n)	last removed element	splice_last(@a, off, n) (aliases splice1, spl_last) — desugars to tail(splice(@a, off, n)), mutates in place
scalar \cmd``	joined stdout as string	already the default — stryke backticks return a single string regardless of context, so no spelling change needed
scalar %h (Perl's hash-fill diagnostic, e.g. "3/8")	dead semantics — never load-bearing	use len keys %h for the count

Default mode (no --no-interop) still accepts every Perl-ism listed above for compat with stock .pm / .pl sources.

---

[0x09] ARCHITECTURE

 ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │  Source ──▶ Lexer ──▶ Parser ──▶ AST                │
 │                                    │                │
 │                                    ▼                │
 │                            Compiler (compiler.rs)   │
 │                                    │                │
 │                                    ▼                │
 │                            Bytecode (bytecode.rs)   │
 │                                    │                │
 │                    ┌───────────────┴───────────┐    │
 │                    ▼                           ▼    │
 │               VM (vm.rs)                 Cranelift  │
 │                    │                      Block JIT │
 │                    ▼                                │
 │       Rayon work-stealing scheduler                 │
 │       CORE 0 │ CORE 1 │ ... │ CORE N                │
 └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• Lexer (src/lexer.rs) — context-sensitive tokenizer for Perl's ambiguous syntax (regex vs division, hash vs modulo, heredocs, interpolation).
• Parser (src/parser.rs) — recursive descent + Pratt precedence climbing.
• Compiler / VM (src/compiler.rs, src/vm.rs) — 100% lowered to bytecode. Compiled subs use slot ops for frame-local my scalars (O(1)). Lowering covers BEGIN/UNITCHECK/CHECK/INIT/END with Op::SetGlobalPhase, mysync, tie, scalar compound assigns via Scope::atomic_mutate, regex values, named-sub coderefs, folds, pcache, pselect, par_lines, par_walk, par_sed, pwatch, each, four-arg substr, dynamic keys/values/delete/exists, etc.
• Block JIT (src/jit.rs) — Cranelift Block JIT with cached OwnedTargetIsa, tiered after STRYKE_JIT_SUB_INVOKES (default 50) VM invocations. Block JIT validates a CFG, joins typed i64/f64 slots at merges, and compiles hot loops to native code. Disable with --no-jit / STRYKE_NO_JIT=1.
• Feature work policy — prefer new VM opcodes in bytecode.rs, lowering in compiler.rs, implementation in vm.rs. Do not add new ExprKind/StmtKind variants for new behavior.
• Parallelism — each parallel block spawns an isolated VM with captured scope; Rayon does work-stealing across all cores.

---

[0x0A] EXAMPLES

stryke examples/fibonacci.stk
stryke examples/text_processing.stk
stryke examples/parallel_demo.stk
stryke convert examples/fibonacci.pl > examples/fibonacci.stk
stryke examples/fibonacci.stk

# sets: dedupe + union / intersection (`scalar` gives member count, like `scalar @array`)
stryke 'my $a = set(1,2,2,3); my $b = set(2,3,4); p scalar($a | $b), " ", scalar($a & $b)'

---

[0x0B] BENCHMARKS

stryke vs perl5 vs python3 vs ruby vs julia vs raku vs luajit

bash bench/run_bench_all.sh — stryke vs perl 5.42.2 vs Python 3.14.4 vs Ruby 4.0.2 vs Julia 1.12.6 vs Raku vs LuaJIT on Apple M5 18-core. Mean of 10 hyperfine runs with 3 warmups; includes process startup (not steady-state). Values <1.0x mean stryke is faster.

 stryke benchmark harness (multi-language)
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────
  stryke:  stryke v0.7.7
  perl5:   perl 5.42.2 (darwin-thread-multi-2level)
  python:  Python 3.14.4
  ruby:    ruby 4.0.2 +PRISM [arm64-darwin25]
  julia:   julia 1.12.6
  raku:    Rakudo Star v2026.03
  luajit:  LuaJIT 2.1.1774896198
  cores:   18
  warmup:  3 runs
  measure: hyperfine (min 10 runs)

  bench        stryke ms  perl5 ms  python3 ms  ruby ms  julia ms  raku ms  luajit ms  vs perl5  vs python  vs ruby  vs julia  vs raku  vs luajit
  ---------    ---------  --------  ----------  -------  --------  -------  ---------  --------  ---------  -------  --------  -------  ---------
  startup            3.3       2.3        14.3     23.8      68.3     71.4        1.5     1.43x      0.23x    0.14x     0.05x    0.05x      2.20x
  fib                6.7     184.0        60.1     56.6      76.4    261.3        4.7     0.04x      0.11x    0.12x     0.09x    0.03x      1.43x
  loop               3.2      91.2       191.4     77.8      78.1    159.4        4.3     0.04x      0.02x    0.04x     0.04x    0.02x      0.74x
  string             4.0      10.2        26.8     44.7      83.2    124.2        3.3     0.39x      0.15x    0.09x     0.05x    0.03x      1.21x
  hash               6.8      24.6        25.5     32.6     105.7    143.7        2.0     0.28x      0.27x    0.21x     0.06x    0.05x      3.40x
  array              9.8      24.8        33.2     39.4      88.2    843.9       59.0     0.40x      0.30x    0.25x     0.11x    0.01x      0.17x
  regex             12.6      89.7       264.0    234.3      94.4  25043.8      178.2     0.14x      0.05x    0.05x     0.13x    0.00x      0.07x
  map_grep          13.9      48.8        35.9     48.8      90.5    492.4        3.3     0.28x      0.39x    0.28x     0.15x    0.03x      4.21x

stryke vs perl5 — faster on all 8 benches: fib 27x, loop 29x, regex 7.1x, hash 3.6x, map_grep 3.5x, array 2.5x, string 2.6x, startup 1.4x.

stryke vs python3 — faster on all 8 benches: loop 60x, regex 21x, string 6.7x, fib 9.0x, startup 4.3x, hash 3.8x, array 3.4x, map_grep 2.6x.

stryke vs ruby — faster on all 8 benches: regex 19x, loop 24x, string 11x, fib 8.4x, startup 7.2x, hash 4.8x, array 4.0x, map_grep 3.5x.

stryke vs julia — faster on all 8 benches: loop 24x, startup 21x, string 21x, hash 16x, fib 11x, array 9.0x, regex 7.5x, map_grep 6.5x. Julia timings include LLVM JIT compilation cost — in long-running sessions Julia compiles to native code and would match C on numeric work. These benchmarks measure scripting use cases where startup + single-shot execution matters.

stryke vs raku — faster on all 8 benches by 20-2000x. Raku's regex is 25044ms vs stryke's 12.6ms (1988x). Raku (Perl 6) runs on MoarVM with heavy startup (~70ms+). Raku's strengths are language features (grammars, gradual typing, junctions), not runtime speed.

stryke vs luajit — LuaJIT is the fastest dynamic language runtime ever built (tracing JIT by Mike Pall). stryke beats LuaJIT on 3 of 8 benchmarks: loop (0.74x), array (0.17x), regex (0.07x). Near-parity on string (1.21x) and fib (1.43x). LuaJIT wins on hash (3.4x) and map_grep (4.2x) where its tracing JIT eliminates all dispatch overhead. LuaJIT uses Lua patterns (not PCRE) for the regex bench. stryke offers what LuaJIT cannot: $_, -ne, regex literals, PCRE, parallel primitives (pmap, pmaps, pgrep), streaming iterators, and one-liner ergonomics.

stryke vs perl5 (detailed)

bash bench/run_bench.sh — includes noJIT and perturbation columns for honesty verification. Re-run to get current numbers on your hardware.

Parallel & streaming speedup (100k items, $_ * 2)

  map   (eager, sequential):     0.01s  — inline execution, zero per-item overhead
  maps  (streaming, sequential): 0.11s  — lazy iterator, single interpreter reused
  pmap  (eager, MAX cores):      0.14s  — pre-built interpreter pool, rayon par_iter
  pmaps (streaming, MAX cores):  0.49s  — background worker threads, bounded channel

maps/pmaps are streaming — they return lazy iterators that never materialize the full result list. Use pmaps for pipelines over billions of items where holding all results in memory is impractical, or with take for early termination: range(0, 1e9) |> pmaps { expensive($_) } |> take 10 |> ep.

---

[0x0C] DEVELOPMENT & CI

Pull requests and pushes to main run .github/workflows/ci.yml (Check, Test, Format, Clippy, Doc, Parity, Release Build).

cargo test --lib                # parser smoke, lexer/value/error/scope, interpreter, vm, jit
cargo test --test integration   # tests/suite/* (runtime, readline list context, line-mode stdin, …)
cargo bench --bench jit_compare # JIT vs interpreter on the same bytecode
bash bench/run_bench.sh         # perl5 vs stryke suite (needs hyperfine)
bash bench/run_bench_all.sh     # stryke vs perl5 vs python3 vs ruby vs julia vs raku vs luajit (needs hyperfine)
bash parity/run_parity.sh       # exact stdout/stderr parity vs system perl (20 000+ cases)

• Cargo.lock is committed (CI uses --locked). If your global gitignore strips it, force-add updates: git add -f Cargo.lock.
• Disable JIT: STRYKE_NO_JIT=1 or stryke --no-jit.
• Parity work is tracked in PARITY_ROADMAP.md.

---

[0x0D] STANDALONE BINARIES (stryke build)

Compile any Perl script to a single self-contained native executable. The output is a copy of the stryke binary with the script source embedded as a zstd-compressed trailer. scp it to any compatible machine and run it — no perl, no stryke, no @INC, no CPAN.

stryke build app.stk                         # → ./app
stryke build app.stk -o /usr/local/bin/app   # explicit output path
./app --any --script --args             # all argv reach the embedded script's @ARGV

What's in the box:

• Parse / compile errors are surfaced at build time, not when users run the binary.
• The embedded script is detected at startup by a 32-byte trailer sniff (~50 µs), then decompressed and executed by the embedded VM. A script with no trailer runs normally as stryke.
• Builds are idempotent: stryke build app.stk -o app followed by stryke --exe app build other.stk -o other strips the previous trailer first, so binaries never stack.
• Unix: the output is marked +x automatically. macOS: unsigned — codesign before distribution if your environment requires it.
• Current AOT runtime sets @INC = ("."); modules outside the embedded script have to be inlined. (require of a local .pm next to the running binary still works.)

Under the hood (src/aot.rs): trailer layout is [zstd payload][u64 compressed_len][u64 uncompressed_len][u32 version][u32 reserved][8B magic b"STRYKEAOT"]. ELF / Mach-O loaders ignore bytes past the mapped segments so the embedded payload is invisible to the OS loader. The b"STRYKEAOT" magic plus version byte lets a future pre-compiled-bytecode payload ship alongside v1 without breaking already-shipped binaries.

# 13 MB binary, no external runtime required:
$ stryke build hello.stk -o hello
stryke build: wrote hello
$ file hello
hello: Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64
$ ./hello alice
hi alice

---

[0x0E] INLINE RUST FFI (rust { ... })

Drop a block of Rust directly into a Perl script. On first run, stryke compiles it to a cdylib (cached at ~/.cache/stryke/ffi/<hash>.{dylib,so}), dlopens it, and registers every exported function as a regular Perl-callable sub.

rust {
    pub extern "C" fn add(a: i64, b: i64) -> i64 { a + b }
    pub extern "C" fn mul3(x: f64, y: f64, z: f64) -> f64 { x * y * z }
    pub extern "C" fn fib(n: i64) -> i64 {
        let (mut a, mut b) = (0i64, 1i64)
        for _ in 0..n { let t = a + b; a = b; b = t; }
        a
    }
}

p add 21, 21         # 42
p mul3 1.5, 2.0, 3.0 # 9
p fib 50             # 12586269025

v1 signature table (parser rejects anything outside this — users write private Rust helpers freely, only exported fns matching the table become Perl-callable):

rust signature	perl call
fn() -> i64 / fn(i64, ...) -> i64 (1–4 args)	integer → integer
fn() -> f64 / fn(f64, ...) -> f64 (1–3 args)	float → float
fn(*const c_char) -> i64	string → integer
fn(*const c_char) -> *const c_char	string → string

Requirements: rustc must be on PATH. First-run compile costs ~1 second; subsequent runs hit the cache and pay only dlopen (~10 ms). #[no_mangle] is auto-inserted by the wrapper — you don't need to write it. The body is #![crate_type = "cdylib"] with use std::os::raw::c_char; use std::ffi::{CStr, CString}; already in scope.

How it works (src/rust_sugar.rs, src/rust_ffi.rs): the source-level pre-pass desugars every top-level rust { ... } into a BEGIN { __stryke_rust_compile("<base64 body>", $line); } call. The __stryke_rust_compile builtin hashes the body, compiles via rustc --edition=2021 -O if the cache is cold, libc::dlopens the result, dlsyms each detected signature, and stores the raw symbol + arity/type tag in a process-global registry. Calls from Perl flow through a fallback arm in [crate::builtins::try_builtin] that dispatches on the signature tag via direct function-pointer transmute — no libffi dep, no per-call alloc, no marshalling overhead beyond the PerlValue::to_int / to_number / to_string calls you'd do for any builtin.

Combine with AOT for zero-friction deployment: stryke build script.stk -o prog bakes the Perl source — which includes the rust { ... } block — into a standalone binary. The FFI compile still happens on first run of ./prog, but the user only needs rustc once, then the ~/.cache/stryke/ffi/ entry is permanent.

Limitations (v1):

• Unix only (macOS + Linux). Windows support is a dlopen-equivalent swap away but isn't wired.
• Signatures beyond the table above are silently ignored (the function still exists in the cdylib, just not Perl-callable).
• Body must be self-contained Rust with std only — no Cargo.toml / external crate deps. If you need regex or similar, vendor the minimal code into the block.
• The cdylib runs with the calling process's privileges. Trust model is equivalent to do FILE.

---

[0x0F] BYTECODE CACHE (rkyv)

stryke stores compiled bytecode in a single rkyv shard at ~/.stryke/scripts.rkyv. The first run of a script parses + compiles + persists into the shard. Every subsequent run mmaps the shard, validates the archived root once, looks up the entry by canonical path in the zero-copy ArchivedHashMap, and skips lex, parse, and compile entirely.

stryke my_app.stk              # cold: parse + compile + write into the shard
stryke my_app.stk              # warm: mmap shard + lookup + dispatch (skips lex/parse/compile)

Cache invalidation: four conditions all evict a stored entry — no stale bytecode is ever served.

Condition	Trigger
Source mtime mismatch	Edit the .stk file → cache miss → recompile
stryke_version mismatch	Cargo version bump in Cargo.toml
Pointer-width mismatch	Cross-build between 32- and 64-bit targets
Binary mtime newer than cached entry	Rebuild stryke (any cargo build advances target/debug/stryke's mtime) → every cached script invalidates automatically. Catches edits to compiler.rs / parser.rs / vm.rs that don't bump CARGO_PKG_VERSION

Built-in inspection:

cacheview()                    # list all cached scripts with stats
cacheview("pattern")           # filter by path pattern
cacheview("--count")           # just the count

cache_stats()                  # returns {count, bytes, path, enabled}
cache_exists("script.stk")     # 1 if cached, 0 if not
cache_clear()                  # wipe the cache

Example output:

$ stryke -e 'cacheview()'
stryke bytecode cache
  path: ~/.stryke/scripts.rkyv
  scripts: 103 (612.45 KB)

PATH                                                      PROG KB    BC KB
/Users/me/project/lib/heavy_module.stk                       8.57     19.48
/Users/me/project/bin/main.stk                               2.45      5.84
...

Tuning:

• STRYKE_CACHE=0 — disable caching entirely
• Cache is enabled by default for file-based scripts
• Bypassed for -e / -E one-liners (overhead > benefit for tiny scripts)
• Bypassed for -n / -p / --lint / --check / --ast / --fmt / --profile modes

Format: rkyv-archived ScriptShard { header, entries: HashMap<path, ScriptEntry> }. Entries hold per-script (mtime_secs, mtime_nsecs, binary_mtime_at_cache, cached_at_secs, program_blob, chunk_blob). Inner blobs use bincode for now (PerlValue's Arc-shared graph isn't trivially zero-copy archivable yet — phase 2 will derive Archive directly on Chunk / Program for full zero-copy load). Writes go through flock on scripts.rkyv.lock and atomic rename of a tmp file.

Aligned with zshrs: same rkyv shard pattern (zshrs/src/daemon/shard.rs) — mmap + check_archived_root + zero-copy ArchivedHashMap lookup. zshrs uses per-source-tree shards with a daemon; stryke uses a single global shard since scripts are individually invoked.

Migration rationale: see docs/CACHE_RKYV_MIGRATION.md for the full story — measured 11x speedup on the per-process workload (s test t), tradeoffs, and what's deferred to phase 2.

---

[0x10] DISTRIBUTED pmap_on OVER SSH (cluster)

Distribute a pmap-style fan-out across many machines via SSH. The dispatcher spawns one persistent stryke --remote-worker process per slot, performs a HELLO + SESSION_INIT handshake once per slot, then streams JOB frames over the same stdin/stdout. Pairs perfectly with stryke build: ship one binary to N hosts, fan the workload across them.

# Build the worker pool. Each spec maps to one or more `ssh HOST STRYKE --remote-worker` lanes.
my $cluster = cluster([
    "build1:8",                          # 8 slots on build1, default `stryke` from PATH
    "alice@build2:16",                   # 16 slots, ssh as alice
    "build3:4:/usr/local/bin/stryke",        # 4 slots, custom remote stryke path
    { host => "data1", slots => 12, stryke => "/opt/stryke" },  # hashref form
    { timeout => 30, retries => 2, connect_timeout => 5 },  # trailing tunables
])

my @hashes = @big_files |> pmap_on $cluster { slurp_raw |> sha_256) }

# pflat_map_on for one-to-many mapping
my @lines = @log_paths |> pflat_map_on $cluster { split /\n/, slurp }

Cluster syntax

Each list element to cluster([...]) is one of:

Form	Meaning
"host"	One slot on host, remote stryke from $PATH
"host:N"	N slots on host
"host:N:/path/to/stryke"	N slots, custom remote stryke binary
"user@host:N"	ssh user override (kept verbatim, passed through to ssh)
{ host => "...", slots => N, stryke => "..." }	Hashref form with explicit fields
trailing { timeout => SECS, retries => N, connect_timeout => SECS }	Cluster-wide tunables (must be the last argument; consumed only when all keys are tunable names)

Tunables (defaults shown):

Key	Default	Meaning
timeout (alias job_timeout)	60	Per-job wall-clock budget in seconds. Slots that exceed this are killed and the job is re-enqueued.
retries	2	Retries per job on top of the initial attempt. retries=2 → up to 3 total tries.
connect_timeout	10	ssh -o ConnectTimeout=N for the initial handshake.

Architecture

main thread                       ┌── slot 0 (ssh build1) ────┐
┌──────────────────┐              │  worker thread + ssh proc  │
│ enqueue all jobs ├──► work_tx ─►│  HELLO + SESSION_INIT once │
│ collect results  │              │  loop: take JOB from queue │
└──────────────────┘              │        send + read         │
        ▲                         │        push to results     │
        │                         └────────────────────────────┘
        │                         ┌── slot 1 (ssh build1) ────┐
        │                         │  worker thread + ssh proc  │
        │                         └────────────────────────────┘
        │                         ┌── slot 2 (ssh build2) ────┐
        │                         │  ...                       │
        │                         └────────────────────────────┘
        │                                    │
        └────────── result_rx ───────────────┘

Each slot runs in its own thread and pulls JOB messages from a shared crossbeam channel. Work-stealing emerges naturally — fast slots drain the queue faster, slow slots take fewer jobs. No round-robin assignment, which was the basic v1 implementation's biggest performance bug (fast hosts sat idle while slow hosts queued). The Interpreter on each remote worker is reused across jobs so package state, sub registrations, and module loads survive between items.

Wire protocol (v2)

Every message is [u64 LE length][u8 kind][bincode payload]. The single-byte kind discriminator lets future revisions extend the protocol without breaking older workers — an unknown kind is a hard error so version skew is loud. See src/remote_wire.rs.

dispatcher                    worker
    │                            │
    │── HELLO ─────────────────►│   (proto version, build id)
    │◄───────────── HELLO_ACK ──│   (worker stryke version, hostname)
    │── SESSION_INIT ──────────►│   (subs prelude, block source, captured lexicals)
    │◄────────── SESSION_ACK ───│   (or ERROR)
    │── JOB(seq=0) ────────────►│   (item)
    │◄────────── JOB_RESP(0) ───│
    │── JOB(seq=1) ────────────►│
    │◄────────── JOB_RESP(1) ───│
    │           ...             │
    │── SHUTDOWN ──────────────►│
    │                            └─ exit 0

The basic v1 protocol shipped the entire subs prelude on every job and spawned a fresh ssh process per item. For a 10k-item map across 8 hosts that's 10 000 ssh handshakes (~50–200 ms each) + 10 000 copies of the subs prelude over the wire — minutes of overhead before any work runs. The v2 persistent session amortizes the handshake across the whole map and ships the prelude once.

Fault tolerance

When a slot's read or write fails (ssh died, network blip, remote crash, per-job timeout), the worker thread re-enqueues the in-flight job to the shared queue with attempts++ and exits. Other living slots pick the job up. A job is permanently failed when its attempt count reaches cluster.max_attempts. The whole map fails only when every slot is dead or every queued job has exhausted its retry budget.

stryke --remote-worker

The worker subprocess. Reads a HELLO frame from stdin, parses subs prelude + block source from SESSION_INIT exactly once, then handles JOB frames in a loop until SHUTDOWN or stdin EOF. Started by the dispatcher via ssh HOST FO_PATH --remote-worker. Also reachable directly for local testing:

echo "..." | stryke --remote-worker      # reads framed wire protocol from stdin
stryke --remote-worker-v1                # legacy one-shot session for compat tests

Limitations (v1)

• Unix only — hardcoded ssh, hardcoded POSIX dlopen path. Windows would need a similar shim.
• JSON-marshalled values — serde_json round-trip loses bigints, blessed refs, and other heap-only PerlValue payloads. The supported types are: undef, bool, i64, f64, string, array, hash. Anything outside that returns an error from pmap_on.
• mysync / atomic capture is rejected — shared state across remote workers can't honour the cross-process mutex semantics in v1. Use the result list and aggregate locally.
• No streaming results — the dispatcher buffers the full result vector before returning. For huge fan-outs this is the next thing to fix (likely via pchannel integration).
• No SSH connection pool across calls — each pmap_on invocation builds fresh sessions. Subsequent pmap_on calls in the same script reconnect from scratch.

---

[0x10a] INFRASTRUCTURE LOAD TESTING

"The hottest language ever created. Literally."

stryke is a server farms first language — the first programming language designed from the ground up for distributed infrastructure load testing. Not HTTP load testing. Not API benchmarks. Bare metal heat.

Stress Testing Builtins

All stress functions pin ALL cores to 100% TDP simultaneously:

stress_cpu(10)           # 10 seconds, SHA256 across ALL cores
stress_mem(1e9)          # 1GB allocated + touched across ALL cores
stress_io("/tmp", 100)   # parallel file I/O across ALL cores
stress_test(60)          # combined CPU + memory + IO stress
heat(60)                 # 🔥 maximum thermal assault

The heat Function

The hottest function in any programming language:

heat(60)

Output:

🔥 HEAT: Pinning MAX cores to 100% TDP for 60s (Ctrl-C to stop early)
🔥 HEAT: 3,116,320,000 hashes in 60.00s (51.9M/s)

Measured Performance (Apple M3 Max)

Function	Result	CPU Usage
stress_cpu(3)	154M hashes	1117% (all cores)
stress_mem(1e9)	1GB touched	452% (parallel)
heat(60)	3.1B hashes	1800% (max TDP)

What stryke Tests

This isn't application performance testing. This is infrastructure validation:

Layer	What You Test
Cooling	Can CRAC units handle sustained full load?
Power	PDU rated for 100% simultaneous draw?
UPS/Generator	Backup power actually works?
Hardware	Which blade has the failing fan?
Ops	Does the NOC notice? How fast?

Distributed Load Testing

Combine with cluster + pmap_on for fleet-wide stress:

my $c = cluster(["node1:16", "node2:16", "node3:16"])

# Pin 48 cores across 3 servers for 60 seconds
1:48 |> pmap_on $c { heat(60) }

Or use the built-in stress_test with cluster:

my $r = stress_test($c, 60)
p "Total hashes: $r->{cpu_hashes}"
p "Workers: $r->{workers}"

Use Cases

• BCP/DR exercises — stress primary datacenter, validate failover
• Capacity planning — prove infrastructure handles peak load
• Burn-in testing — validate new hardware before production
• Cooling validation — find thermal limits before summer hits
• Compliance — demonstrate resilience for SOC 2, PCI DSS, FedRAMP

---

[0x10b] AGENT/CONTROLLER ARCHITECTURE

stryke includes a complete distributed load testing system with persistent agents and interactive control.

Controller (Master REPL)

stryke controller                    # listen on 0.0.0.0:9999
stryke controller --port 8888        # custom port
stryke controller --bind 10.0.0.1    # specific interface

Commands:

Command	Description
status	List connected agents with cores, memory, state
fire [SECS]	Start stress test on all agents (default: 10s)
terminate	Stop stress test immediately
shutdown	Disconnect all agents and exit

Agent (Worker Daemon)

stryke agent                              # use config file
stryke agent --controller 10.0.0.1        # connect to specific host
stryke agent --port 9999                  # specific port

Config file: ~/.config/stryke/agent.toml

[controller]
host = "controller.example.com"
port = 9999

[limits]
max_temp = 85       # auto-terminate if CPU temp exceeds
max_duration = 3600 # max seconds per session

[agent]
name = "node-01"    # optional, defaults to hostname

Example Session

$ stryke controller
stryke controller listening on 0.0.0.0:9999
[agent connected] node-01 (cores=64, session=1)
[agent connected] node-02 (cores=64, session=2)
[agent connected] node-03 (cores=64, session=3)

controller> status
AGENT                 CORES     MEMORY        STATE       UPTIME
------------------------------------------------------------
node-01                  64       256GB         idle         42s
node-02                  64       256GB         idle         38s
node-03                  64       256GB         idle         35s

Total: 3 agents, 192 cores, 0 firing

controller> fire 60
[fire] 3 agents, duration=60s

controller> terminate
[terminate] 3 agents

Wire Protocol

Framed binary protocol over TCP:

CONTROLLER                    AGENT
    │                           │
    │◄──── AGENT_HELLO ─────────│  (hostname, cores, memory)
    │───── AGENT_HELLO_ACK ────►│  (session_id)
    │                           │
    │───── FIRE ───────────────►│  (workload, duration)
    │◄──── METRICS ─────────────│  (cpu%, hashes/sec)
    │───── TERMINATE ──────────►│
    │◄──── TERM_ACK ────────────│  (final stats)

Deployment

Single binary, zero dependencies:

# Build self-contained agent binary
stryke build agent.stk -o stryke-agent

# Deploy to any Linux server
scp stryke-agent node1:/usr/local/bin/
ssh node1 'stryke-agent --controller controller:9999'

Kubernetes DaemonSet:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
  name: stryke-agent
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: agent
        image: ghcr.io/menketechnologies/stryke:latest
        args: ["agent", "--controller", "stryke-controller:9999"]

Why This Matters

Other Tools	stryke
External load generators	Agents inside cluster
Config files, YAML, XML	fire 60 — two words
Batch jobs, wait for results	Interactive REPL
Install runtime on every node	Single binary, no deps
Test application performance	Test infrastructure: cooling, power, fabric

stryke is the ultimate load testing tool for distributed computing clusters.

---

[0x11] LANGUAGE SERVER (stryke lsp)

stryke lsp (or stryke --lsp) runs an LSP server over stdio. Hooks into the existing parser, lexer, and symbol table — no separate analyzer to maintain. Surfaces:

• Diagnostics on save (parse + compile errors with line / column / message)
• Hover docs for builtins (pmap, cluster, fetch_json, dataframe, …) — including the parallel and cluster primitives from sections [0x03] and [0x10]
• Symbol lookup for subs and packages within the open file
• Completion for built-in function names and the keywords listed in [0x08]

Wire it into VS Code, JetBrains, or any LSP-aware editor by pointing the client at stryke lsp (or stryke --lsp) as the language-server command. There is no separate stryke-lsp binary — the same stryke you run scripts with also acts as its own language server.

// .vscode/settings.json
{
  "stryke.serverPath": "/usr/local/bin/stryke",
  "stryke.serverArgs": ["--lsp"]
}

---

[0x12] LANGUAGE REFLECTION

stryke exposes its own parser and dispatcher state as plain Perl hashes, so you can enumerate, look up, filter, and pipe over everything the interpreter knows about — no separate API surface to learn, just standard hash ops.

The data is derived at compile time by build.rs from the source of truth: section-commented groups in is_perl5_core / stryke_extension_name (for categories), try_builtin arm names (for aliases), and doc_for_label_text in src/lsp.rs (for descriptions). No hand-maintained list, no stale counts.

Hashes

Eight hashes; every direct lookup ($h{name}) is O(1). Forward maps:

Long name	Short	Key → Value
%stryke::builtins	%b	primary callable name → category ("parallel", "string", …). Primaries-only — clean unique-op count.
%stryke::all	%all	every spelling (primary + alias) → category. Aliases inherit their primary's tag. Use this for scalar keys %all.
%stryke::perl_compats	%pc	subset of %b: Perl 5 core only, name → category
%stryke::extensions	%e	subset of %b: stryke-only, name → category
%stryke::aliases	%a	alias → canonical primary ($a{tj} → "to_json")
%stryke::descriptions	%d	name → one-line LSP summary (sparse)

Inverted indexes for constant-time reverse queries:

Long name	Short	Key → Value
%stryke::categories	%c	category → arrayref of names ($c{parallel} → [pmap, pgrep, …])
%stryke::primaries	%p	primary → arrayref of its aliases ($p{to_json} → [tj])

Examples

# O(1) direct lookups
stryke 'p $b{pmap}'              # "parallel"
stryke 'p $b{to_json}'           # "serialization"
stryke 'p $pc{map}'              # "array / list"
stryke 'p $e{pmap}'              # "parallel"
stryke 'p $a{tj}'                # "to_json"
stryke 'p $d{pmap}'              # LSP one-liner
stryke 'p $all{tj}'              # "serialization"  (alias resolved via %all)
stryke 'p scalar @{$c{parallel}}'  # number of parallel ops
stryke '$p{to_json} |> e p'        # every alias of to_json

# total callable spellings (primaries + aliases), one direct count
stryke 'p scalar keys %all'

# see just Perl compats
stryke 'keys %pc |> sort |> p'

# see just stryke extensions
stryke 'keys %e |> sort |> p'

# enumerate a whole category in O(1)
stryke '$c{parallel} |> e p'
stryke '$c{"array / list"} |> e p'

# browse any of them interactively via the pager
stryke 'keys %all |> less'

# frequency table: how many ops per category?
stryke 'my %f; $f{$b{$_}}++ for keys %b; dd \%f'

# find every documented op mentioning "parallel"
stryke 'keys %d |> grep { $d{$_} =~ /parallel/i } |> sort |> p'

# catalog the full reflection surface
stryke 'for my $h (qw(b all pc e a d c p)) {
         printf "%%%-4s %d\n", $h, scalar keys %$h
       }'

Notes

• Every direct $h{name} lookup is O(1). Filter queries (grep { cond } keys %h) are O(n), but the two inverted indexes (%c, %p) give you O(1) reverse-lookups for the two most common "find names by property" queries.
• Hash sigil namespace is separate from scalars and subs, so %a/%b/%c/%d/%e/%p/%pc don't collide with $a/$b sort specials or the e extension sub.
• Short aliases are value copies of the long %stryke::* names — currently read-only in practice, so the copy never diverges.
• %descriptions is sparse: exists $d{$name} doubles as "is this documented in the LSP?". Undocumented ops still appear in %builtins with a category — they just lack a hover summary.
• A value of "uncategorized" in %builtins means the name is dispatched at runtime but doesn't match any // ── category ── section comment in parser.rs yet — a flag for "add a section header here", not an error.

[0x14] PACKAGE MANAGER

Cargo-shaped manifest + lockfile, hash-pinned, parallel resolver. Single binary surface (stryke ...), no separate cargo-style entry point. Full design in docs/PACKAGE_REGISTRY.md.

# Lifecycle
stryke new myapp                  # scaffold project at ./myapp/
stryke init                       # scaffold project in cwd
stryke add http@^1.0 json         # write deps to stryke.toml
stryke add mylib --path=../mylib  # local path dep (works today)
stryke add http --dev             # dev-deps
stryke add criterion --group=bench
stryke remove http                # drop dep from manifest
stryke install                    # resolve + write stryke.lock
stryke install --offline          # no network; lockfile-only
stryke update [NAME]              # re-resolve and rewrite stryke.lock
stryke outdated                   # report deps drifted from their lock pin
stryke audit                      # check lockfile against advisory feed
stryke tree                       # print resolved dep graph
stryke info http                  # show lockfile entry for a dep
stryke vendor                     # snapshot store deps to ./vendor/
stryke clean [--all]              # wipe target/ (and optionally global caches)

# npm-style task runner
stryke run greet                  # execute [scripts] entry "greet"

# Global CLI tools
stryke install -g ../mytool       # link [bin] entries from a path package into ~/.stryke/bin/
stryke uninstall -g mytool
stryke list -g

# Registry surface (registry endpoint not deployed yet — stubs return diagnostics)
stryke search NAME
stryke publish [--dry-run]
stryke yank VERSION

Project layout (examples/project/):

myapp/
├── stryke.toml                   # manifest (name, version, deps, [scripts], [bin], [workspace], etc.)
├── stryke.lock                   # exact versions + integrity hashes (commit this)
├── main.stk                      # entry point (`stryke main.stk` or just `stryke`)
├── lib/                          # module sources, accessed via require/use
├── bin/                          # additional executables (auto-discovered)
├── t/                            # tests (`stryke test t/`)
├── benches/                      # benchmarks (`stryke bench`)
└── target/                       # build outputs (gitignored)

Workspaces are first-class:

# stryke.toml at workspace root
[workspace]
members = ["crates/*"]

[workspace.deps]
shared = { path = "../shared" }   # one version pinned for the whole monorepo

Then in any member's stryke.toml:

[deps]
shared = { workspace = true }     # inherit version + features from the root

Single stryke.lock at the workspace root pins every member's transitive graph.

Deps live globally in ~/.stryke/store/name@version/ — no node_modules/-shaped per-project dependency tree. Every dep is hash-pinned in the lockfile (Nix-style reproducibility, Cargo-style ergonomics). stryke build --release AOT-compiles the whole program — your code, every dep, the stdlib — through Cranelift to a single statically-linked native binary. SFTP-able. No interpreter needed on the target machine.

Status: path deps + workspace deps + full CLI surface (new/init/add/remove/install/update/outdated/audit/tree/info/vendor/clean/run/install -g etc.) are wired and tested today. Registry/git deps + the PubGrub semver resolver land when the registry endpoint is deployed — the CLI stubs for search/publish/yank already exist and return clear "registry not deployed yet" diagnostics so the surface matches the RFC end-state.

Skipped on purpose: install-time code execution (no build.rs / postinstall), hoisting, phantom deps, peer deps, mutable registries. The lockfile is sacred; regenerate explicitly.

---

[0x15] WEB FRAMEWORK (s_web)

Rails-shaped framework that lives in the sibling crate stryke_web/. Generator emits .stk source files; framework runtime is web_* builtins in the main strykelang/ crate. Full reference in stryke_web/README.md.

One-line full-stack app:

s_web new mega --app everything --theme cyberpunk --auth --admin --docker --ci --pwa --migrate
cd mega && bin/server
# ~70 resources, ~490 CRUD routes, dark cyberpunk CSS, signup/login/sessions,
# admin panel at /admin, /health endpoint, Dockerfile, GitHub Actions CI, PWA
# manifest + service worker. Runs at http://localhost:3000.

Component	What's wired
Routing	web_route VERB " /path", "ctrl#act", web_resources "posts" (7-route REST), web_root "ctrl#act", OpenAPI 3.0 dump auto-served at /openapi.json, Swagger UI at /docs
Controllers	web_render(html|text|json|template|redirect), web_params, web_request, web_set_header, web_status, web_security_headers, default-convention render
Views	ERB engine (<%= %> / <% %> / <%# %> / <%- -%>), layout wrap, partials (web_render_partial), web_link_to, web_form_with, web_text_field/area/check_box, web_csrf_meta_tag
ORM (SQLite)	class Article extends ApplicationRecord with auto-generated Self.all/find/where/create/update/destroy static methods. web_model_paginate/search/soft_destroy/count/first/last/with for n+1 elimination, soft delete, pagination
Migrations	web_create_table/drop_table/add_column/remove_column schema DSL, web_migrate/rollback runner, schema_migrations tracking
Validations / strong params	web_validate(+{title => "presence,length:1..100", email => "format:^.+@.+$"}), web_permit($params, "title", "body")
Auth	web_password_hash/verify, web_session_set/get, signed time-limited tokens (web_token_for/consume), CSRF meta, web_can("posts.edit", $user) permissions
Filters	web_before_action/web_after_action with only/except
HTTP cache	web_etag with auto-304 short-circuit, prompt-cache headers
Helpers	web_h (HTML escape), web_truncate, web_pluralize, web_time_ago_in_words, web_image_tag, web_button_to
API	--api mode, s_web g api Post JSON controllers, JSON:API helpers (web_jsonapi_resource/collection/error), web_bearer_token
Themes	9 baked-in: simple, dark, pico, bootstrap, tailwind, cyberpunk, synthwave, terminal, matrix
DevOps	--docker (multi-stage Dockerfile + .dockerignore), --ci (GitHub Actions), --pwa (manifest.json + service worker)
Fat binary	s_web build --out dist && cd dist && cargo build --release produces a single self-contained binary that include_str!s every .stk file plus the stryke runtime — drop on any Linux box, run, no deps
Generators	s_web g {scaffold, model, migration, controller, app, auth, admin, api, mailer, job, channel, docker, ci, pwa}

Presets: blog (8 resources), ecommerce (15), saas (12), social (10), cms (12), forum (10), crm (10), helpdesk (8), plus named clones: amazon (25), facebook (23), learning (21 — Anki-style with SRS), and everything (~70 resources unioned + dedup'd).

---

[0x16] AI PRIMITIVES

ai is a builtin like print — two letters, ubiquitous, unlimited power. Full design + phase-by-phase status in docs/AI_PRIMITIVES.md.

my $r = ai "summarize this", $document       # bare call
my $r = ai "research X", tools => [...]      # auto-routes to agent loop
my $r = ai "describe", image => "/img.jpg"   # vision
my $r = ai "extract", schema => +{...}       # structured output
my $r = ai "...", pdf => "/contract.pdf"     # document input
for my $chunk in stream_prompt("write a haiku") { print $chunk }   # iter-context streaming

Surface	Builtins
Single-shot	ai, prompt, stream_prompt, chat, embed, tokens_of, ai_estimate
Agent loop	ai($p, tools => [...]) — Anthropic tool_use + OpenAI function-calling protocols. Multi-turn, multi-tool, max_turns/max_cost ceilings
tool fn keyword	tool fn weather($city: string) "Get weather" { ... } — auto-schemas signature, auto-registers, auto-attaches to bare ai($p) calls
Built-in tools	web_search_tool (Brave/DDG), fetch_url_tool, read_file_tool, run_code_tool (sandboxed Python) — drop into tools => [...]
MCP client	mcp_connect("stdio:CMD") and mcp_connect("https://..."), full tools/resources/prompts/call surface, auto-attach to agent loop via mcp_attach_to_ai
MCP server	mcp_server_start("name", +{tools => [...]}) runtime, plus declarative mcp_server "name" { tool foo($a) "..." {...} } parser DSL
Sessions	ai_session_new/send/history/reset/close — multi-turn chat tracking
Collection ops	ai_filter, ai_map, ai_classify, ai_match, ai_sort, ai_dedupe — single batched LLM call across the collection
Memory / RAG	ai_memory_save/recall/forget/count/clear — sqlite-backed embedding store, cosine retrieval
Vector ops	vec_cosine, vec_search, vec_topk
Multimodal	ai_vision (image), ai_pdf (document)
Cost / cache	ai_cost, ai_cache_get/set/clear, ai_history, ai_budget($usd, sub { ... }) scoped cap
Mock / test	ai_mock_install, STRYKE_AI_MODE=mock-only for CI
Convenience	ai_summarize, ai_translate, ai_extract, ai_template, ai_last_thinking
Audio	ai_transcribe "audio.mp3" (Whisper), ai_speak "text", voice => "alloy" (OpenAI TTS)
Image	ai_image $prompt, ai_image_edit $prompt, image => $src, mask => $m, ai_image_variation image => $src, n => 4 — DALL-E 3 / gpt-image-1 / DALL-E 2
Catalog	ai_models("openai"|"anthropic"|"ollama"|"gemini") — live model IDs from each provider's /models endpoint
Citations	ai_pdf $p, pdf => $f, citations => 1 and ai_grounded $p, documents => [@paths] — multi-doc grounding with auto-citations via ai_citations()
Files (OpenAI)	ai_file_upload "file.bin", purpose => "user_data", ai_file_list, ai_file_get, ai_file_delete
Files (Anthropic)	ai_file_anthropic_upload "file.pdf", ai_file_anthropic_list, ai_file_anthropic_delete — beta files-api-2025-04-14
Moderation	ai_moderate $text → +{ flagged, categories, scores } — OpenAI safety classifier (free endpoint)
Chunk	ai_chunk $text, max_tokens => 500, overlap => 50, by => "chars"|"sentences" — RAG primitive, no API call
Warm / verify	ai_warm(model => ..., provider => ...) → +{ ok, latency_ms, error } — auth + reachability ping at script start
Compare	ai_compare $a, $b, criteria => "...", scale => 5 → +{ winner, reason, scores } — single-call structured comparison
Dashboard	print ai_dashboard() — ANSI summary of cost/tokens/cache hit-ratio
Pricing	ai_pricing("claude-opus-4-7") → +{ input, output, input_per_1m, output_per_1m } for pre-flight cost estimates
Describe	ai_describe "img.png", style => "concise"|"detailed"|"alt" — vision wrapper with style presets
Sessions	ai_session_new/send/history/reset/close plus ai_session_export($h) → $json and ai_session_import($json) → $h for persistence across runs
Embed providers	Voyage (default), OpenAI (text-embedding-3), Ollama (nomic-embed-text/mxbai-embed-large — local, $0/M tokens)
CLI modes	stryke ai --image PROMPT -o out.png, --transcribe audio.mp3 -o out.txt, --speak "hello" -o out.mp3 — UNIX-filter mode covers chat, image, audio
Batch	ai_batch(\@prompts) — Anthropic batch API at 50% cost
Cluster fanout	ai_pmap(\@items, "instruction", cluster => $c) — distributed AI work
CLI	stryke ai "prompt" — UNIX filter mode with --model, --system, --stream, --json

Providers wired: Anthropic (full surface incl. extended thinking, prompt caching, vision, PDF, batch), OpenAI (Chat + tool calls + streaming, Whisper, TTS), Voyage (embeddings, default), Ollama (/api/generate), OpenAI-compatible (openai_compat/compat/local — LM Studio, vLLM, llama-server; configurable STRYKE_AI_BASE_URL), Google Gemini. In-process llama.cpp deferred — Ollama / LM Studio is the supported local path today.

# Auto-attached: bare `ai()` sees the tool fn without `tools =>` arg.
tool fn current_user($username: string) "Look up a user" {
    User::find_by_email($username)
}

tool fn create_post($title: string, $body: string) "Create a post" {
    Post::create(+{ title => $title, body => $body })
}

my $reply = ai("create a post titled 'Hello' from alice@x.io with body 'World'");

---

[0x17] EXPECT / INTERACTIVE AUTOMATION

PTY-driven interactive scripting — the modern Tcl/Expect successor. Full design + phase status in docs/expect-feature-idea.md.

my $h = pty_spawn("ssh user@host");
pty_expect($h, qr/password:/, 30);
pty_send($h, "hunter2\n");
pty_expect($h, qr/\$ /, 30);
pty_send($h, "uptime\n");
my $out = pty_expect($h, qr/\$ /, 30);
pty_close($h);

# Table form (Tcl `expect { ... }` block, in stryke):
my $tag = pty_expect_table($h, [
    +{ re => qr/password:/, do => sub { pty_send($h, "$pw\n"); "ok" } },
    +{ re => qr/yes\/no/,   do => sub { pty_send($h, "yes\n"); "confirmed" } },
    +{ re => qr/denied/,    do => sub { die "auth failed" } },
], 30);

# Method-form sugar (require "perl_pty_class.stk"):
my $h = PtyHandle::spawn("ssh host");
$h->expect(qr/password:/, 30);
$h->send("$pw\n");
$h->branch([+{re => qr/\$ /, do => sub { "shell ready" }}], 30);
$h->interact();   # raw-mode handoff, Ctrl-] to detach
$h->close();

Builtin	Behavior
pty_spawn(cmd) / pty_spawn(cmd, arg, ...)	Allocate PTY via nix::pty::openpty, fork+exec child, return handle
pty_send($h, "text")	Write to master fd
pty_read($h, timeout_secs)	One-shot read, returns string or undef on EOF
pty_expect($h, qr/.../, timeout?)	Loop: try regex on buffer, else select() + drain, retry until match or timeout
pty_expect_table($h, [+{re, do}, ...], timeout?)	Multi-pattern dispatch — first match wins; calls the matched branch's do sub
pty_buffer($h) / pty_alive($h) / pty_eof($h)	Inspection
pty_close($h)	SIGTERM → 200ms grace → SIGKILL, returns exit status
pty_interact($h)	Raw-mode handoff: tcgetattr/cfmakeraw, select() on stdin+master, forward both directions until EOF or Ctrl-]

Combined with pmap_on cluster dispatch you get parallel SSH automation across N hosts:

my $cluster = cluster(["host1:8", "host2:8", "host3:8"]);
pmap_on $cluster @hosts -> $host {
    my $h = pty_spawn("ssh $host");
    pty_expect($h, qr/password:/, 10);
    pty_send($h, "$passwords{$host}\n");
    pty_expect($h, qr/\$ /, 30);
    pty_send($h, "apt update && apt upgrade -y\n");
    pty_expect($h, qr/\$ /, 1800);
    pty_close($h);
}

Unix-only for v0; Windows ConPTY support is a separate code path that's still pending.

---

[0x18] DOCUMENTATION

All documentation is served via GitHub Pages at menketechnologies.github.io/strykelang/.

Document	Description
Docs Home	Stryke reference — quickstart, builtins, parallel primitives, pipe-forward syntax, reflection hashes
Full Reference	Complete language reference — every builtin, operator, special variable, and regex feature
Engineering Report	strykelang internals — Rust lines, callable builtins, VM opcodes, AST variants, Cranelift JIT, rayon-backed parallel runtime, perl-parity cases
PACKAGE_REGISTRY.md	Package manager design — manifest, lockfile, resolver, global store, build outputs
stryke_web/README.md	Web framework — generators, presets, themes, builtins, fat-binary build
AI_PRIMITIVES.md	AI primitives — agent loop, MCP, tool fn, RAG, vector search, providers, phase-by-phase status
expect-feature-idea.md	Interactive automation — PTY runtime, expect tables, cluster fanout
STRESS_TESTING.md	Distributed load testing — stress_* builtins, agent/controller, hardware/cooling validation
WEB_FRAMEWORK.md	Original web-framework design RFC
ROADMAP.md	Forward-looking work and open questions

---

[0xFF] LICENSE

MIT — see LICENSE.

---

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