Quilt Documentation

Quilt lets metaprograms in any language generate and manipulate code in any other language using five Unicode arrow glyphs.

A .quilt file is ordinary source code with Quilt brackets spliced in. Running quilt expand strips the brackets and writes plain source — no special build system required.

// squares.py.rs.quilt  —  a Rust program that generates Python
let squares: Vec<u64> = (1..=5).map(|n| n * n).collect();

let program = python↖
    def main():
        squares = ↙squares.↑↘
        print(squares)

    main()
↗;

println!("{}", program.coparse());

# generated squares.py
def main():
    squares = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
    print(squares)

main()

The five operators — quote ↖↗, unquote ↙↘, lift ↑, reduce ↓, emit ← — compose across any combination of supported languages. See Concepts for a full walkthrough.

Start here

1. Concepts — the file format, all five operators, and how staging works
2. CLI & Scripts — quilt expand, quilt run, and the helper scripts
3. Editor Setup — VS Code extension with glyph keybindings and LSP support

Language

Page	What it covers
Concepts	The .quilt file format, operator glyphs, quasi-quoting, and staging

Tooling

Page	What it covers
CLI & Scripts	quilt expand, quilt run, and the bin/ helper scripts
Python Bindings	quilt_python — the PyO3 runtime for .py.quilt files
Quilt LSP	quilt-lsp — the multiplexing Language Server
Editor Setup	VS Code extension, keybindings, and tools/quilt

Internals

Reference material for contributors and anyone extending Quilt.

Page	What it covers
QTerm IR	The central QTerm data type and the QTermBuilder fluent API
Parse → Expand Pipeline	How a .quilt file becomes ordinary source code
Language Traits	Language, LanguagePost, MetaLanguage — the extension points
Concrete Languages	Rust, Python, HTML, WGSL, Zsh, Bash, Text implementations
Multi and Omni	The Multi<LS,MS> engine and the Omni production registry
Bootstrap	Self-hosting: generating meta.rs from mk_meta.rs.quilt
Adding a Language	Step-by-step guide for supporting a new language
Nanobots	The gas-metered nanobot IR toolchain (sibling repo)

Repository layout

quilt/
├── quilt/              # Core library + CLI
├── quilt-lsp/          # Language Server
├── quilt-python/       # PyO3 bindings (Python runtime)
├── tree-sitter-quilt/  # Grammar for the Quilt bracket syntax
├── bin/                # Helper scripts: quilt, bootstrap, build-py, …
├── tools/quilt/        # VS Code extension
├── docs/wiki/          # This wiki
└── examples/           # Annotated .quilt examples