NovaLang — Release Program

Release target

Recommended first public milestone: 0.2.0 public alpha, explicitly unstable. Do not call the current system production-ready or 1.0.

Quality gates

R0 — product contract and freeze

Goal: decide what NovaLang is before scaling documentation and branding.

• approve philosophy, audience and stable/experimental feature matrix;
• decide product name, executable, extension and repository identity;
• write syntax RFC and compatibility/edition policy;
• define supported operating systems and release tier;
• define threat model and policy for untrusted code.

Exit: no unresolved naming or core-syntax decision.

R1 — correctness foundation

• fix interpreter expression statements;
• fix GC temporary rooting;
• fix optimizer boolean folding;
• make cache depend on the complete module graph;
• implement differential interpreter/VM tests;
• add regression and property tests for every fixed invariant;
• reject unsupported constructs at the earliest reliable stage with actionable diagnostics;
• publish a generated feature matrix.

Exit: zero known P0 correctness bugs; parity corpus green.

R2 — language and module stabilization

• define normative lexical, grammar, type and runtime behavior;
• implement real short-circuit semantics;
• replace compile-time range expansion with range iteration;
• introduce stable definition/module identities and visibility enforcement;
• specify Unicode string length/equality/value semantics;
• add source maps and stack traces;
• implement approved edition migration and canonical formatter output.

Exit: language conformance suite and migration tests green.

R3 — security and package hardening

• checksums in archive, index and lockfile;
• immutable package versions;
• transactional install/cache/registry writes with rollback;
• resource limits and isolated execution profile;
• symlink-safe bounded filesystem traversal;
• cargo-deny/audit, SBOM and dependency policy;
• security response policy and vulnerability reporting.

Exit: threat-model controls tested; dependency audits green.

R4 — developer experience

• coherent CLI input model, structured exits and JSON diagnostics;
• shell completions and generated command reference;
• LSP debounce/cancellation/version guards and incremental synchronization;
• go-to-definition, references, rename, signature help, symbols and code actions;
• grammar/completion generated from one language metadata source;
• clean, bundled and tested VS Code artifact;
• binary installation, update and uninstall flow.

Exit: installation and editor smoke tests pass on Windows, Linux and macOS.

R5 — private release engineering

• proprietary license and closed-source distribution contract;
• support, security, release checklist and private reporting policy;
• CI matrix across three operating systems, stable Rust and MSRV;
• website, documentation, extension and dependency gates;
• tag-driven release archives with checksums, VSIX, SBOM and artifact smoke tests;
• HTTPS distribution independent from repository authentication;
• safe install, update, uninstall and rollback rehearsal.

Exit: private release checklist signed off; no open P0/P1 release blocker.

R6 — post-alpha hardening

• coverage thresholds and long-running stress tests;
• fuzz targets for lexer, parser, bytecode and package archives;
• tracked compiler/runtime performance budgets and regression alerts;
• native artifact signing and provenance attestations;
• sandboxed playground after resource isolation is independently reviewed.

Exit: security and performance budgets remain green during the beta window.

Priority matrix

Required decisions

1. Keep the public name NovaLang, or run a naming/availability phase before branding and repository creation?
2. Preserve current syntax for the first alpha, or approve an edition RFC around fun, val/var and removal of redundant spellings?
3. Confirm the first target as 0.2.0 public alpha, rather than beta or 1.0.
4. Provide/authorize the GitHub owner and private repository name when the GitHub connection is available.