Prismio glossary

AIF — Adaptive Inference Framework, the experimental pass that classifies allocation sites and drives memory-management code generation.

allocation site — A compiler-identified source/semantic operation that creates managed storage and receives AIF evidence/tier classification.

borrow — Temporary access that does not transfer ownership. Ordinary move-only parameters borrow by default.

copy value — A value whose assignment leaves the source usable. In 0.1 this includes scalars, raw pointer values, fieldless enums, and arrays.

declaration — A top-level import, global binding, function, extern function, struct, or enum accepted by the 0.1 grammar.

entry module — The source file passed to build, run, or analysis. Its directory anchors import resolution.

experimental — Implemented end to end but allowed to change substantially before 1.0. AIF policy/annotations and WebAssembly integration contain experimental areas.

extern function — A body-less Prismio declaration for a symbol supplied by the runtime or a linked C-compatible implementation.

fieldless enum — A nominal enum whose variants carry no payload. Current variants use declaration-order integer-like lowering but lack a stable persistence ABI.

fixed point — Agreement between relevant outputs of successive self-hosted compiler generations built from the same source.

flattening — Import behavior that combines resolved syntax trees into one program namespace rather than preserving file-qualified modules.

implemented — Present in the audited Prismio 0.1.0 compiler. This label does not imply API stability.

implementation-defined — Behavior selected and documented by an implementation rather than fixed identically by the language specification.

LLVM IR — The backend intermediate representation generated by Prismio. It is an implementation artifact, not additional Prismio source syntax.

move-only value — A string, list, or struct value whose ownership cannot be implicitly copied.

move — Transfer of ownership to a new binding, aggregate/container, sink parameter, or destruction operation, after which the source binding cannot be read.

nominal type — A type whose identity comes from its declaration name. Structs/enums with identical contents remain different types.

optional — T?, a present-or-none form limited to reference-shaped types in 0.1. Optionality does not remove ownership.

ownership — Responsibility for a move-only value's valid use and eventual management action at a program point.

reference-shaped type — A representation category used by optional types; currently structs, strings, lists, and raw pointers.

region — A lexical allocation scope, optionally constrained by a byte budget.

seed compiler — Committed target-neutral LLVM IR used to break the initial self-hosting cycle.

sink parameter — A parameter that consumes a move-only argument.

inout parameter — A mutable borrowed parameter. The caller retains ownership.

tier — An AIF allocation strategy such as stack (T0), region (T1), unique escaping (T2), reference counted (T3), or cycle aware (T4b).

wildcard import — path.*, which imports sorted direct .psm children of a directory without recursion.

Coming Soon — Designed or documented for roadmap continuity but not accepted end to end by the 0.1 compiler.

draft — Compiler-derived documentation/specification that is not yet frozen as an independent stable language standard.