kaikai - Programming language

kaikai is an open source programming language created in 2026 by Eduardo Díaz.

#1403on PLDB

0Years Old

Download source code:

git clone https://github.com/kaikailang-org/kaikai

A statically typed functional language with algebraic effects and handlers, Perceus reference counting and native compilation through LLVM, designed to be written with and by coding agents.

Tags: programming language
kaikai is developed on GitHub
Koka and Effekt and Elixir and Erlang influenced the design of kaikai
kaikai compiles to LLVM IR
kaikai is written in kaikai, C
Read more about kaikai on the web: 1.
1 PLDB concepts link to kaikai: kaikai

Example from the web:

effect Log {
  log(msg: String) : Unit
}

fn greet(name: String) : Unit / Log {
  Log.log("hello, #{name}")
}

fn main() {
  handle {
    greet("world")
  } with Log {
    log(msg, resume) -> {
      println("[INFO] #{msg}")
      resume(())
    }
  }
}

kaikai Keywords

if else match case when handle with where requires ensures fn type effect protocol impl for axiom const theory unit kind let var import use as pub priv extern test bench check assert and or not

Language features

Feature	Supported	Example	Token
Pipes	✓	[1..100] \| classify \| label \|> list.foreach(println)
Pattern Matching	✓	fn classify(n: Int) : Tag = match n { n if n % 15 == 0 -> Both n if n % 3 == 0 -> Fizz n if n % 5 == 0 -> Buzz n -> Other(n) }
Algebraic Data Type	✓	type Tag = Both \| Fizz \| Buzz \| Other(Int)
Type Inference	✓	let answer = 42
Static Typing	✓	fn add(a: Int, b: Int) : Int = a + b
Functions	✓	fn add(a: Int, b: Int) : Int = a + b
Integers	✓	let answer = 42
Line Comments	✓	# A comment	#
Comments	✓	# A comment
Strings	✓	"Hello, kaikai"
Print() Debugging	✓	println("Hello, kaikai")	println
File Imports	✓	import collections.map as cmap
Semantic Indentation	X