Cajá

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Changelog ​

All notable changes to the Caja Language and CLI will be documented in this file.

[v0.1.0-alpha.5] - 2026-08-29 ​

Added ​

  • VS Code Extension: Introduced the official Caja VS Code extension with foundational syntax highlighting (PR #73).
  • Language Server Protocol (LSP): Implemented full LSP support inside the Caja CLI to bring advanced IDE features to the editor (PR #74).
    • Live Diagnostics: Real-time syntax and semantic error highlighting as you type.
    • Hover Information: Instantly view inferred types, struct layouts, and function signatures.
    • Go to Definition (Cmd+Click): Navigate directly to variable, function, and struct definitions, including cross-file module navigation.
    • Signature Help: Display parameter hints and active parameter tracking while typing function calls.

Performance & Architecture Optimizations ​

  • Single Worker Pattern: The LSP safely processes requests sequentially per document, completely eliminating CPU spikes caused by overlapping parses on rapid keystrokes.
  • Early Context Cancellation: Intermediate keystrokes instantly cancel mid-flight background validations, freeing up CPU resources for the most recent AST changes.
  • Lock-Free Fast Reads: ASTs and Analyzers are safely cached using sync.RWMutex, allowing LSP operations like Hover and Go To Definition to read from memory in O(1) time without triggering expensive re-parses.

Fixed ​

  • Parser Crash Fix: Fixed a critical interface typed-nil bug in the parser that caused panics when evaluating incomplete statements (e.g., let, const, return, import, type).
  • Syntax Enforcement: The parser now strictly enforces newlines between statements.

Documentation ​

  • Created this comprehensive human-readable root CHANGELOG.md to document all notable changes across alpha releases.
  • Standardized the VS Code extension's CHANGELOG.md to adhere to the "Keep a Changelog" format.

[v0.1.0-alpha.4] - 2026-08-27 ​

Added ​

  • Encode & Decode Commands: Added new encode and decode commands to the CLI, along with updated help documentation and test coverage (PR #71).

[v0.1.0-alpha.3] - 2026-08-24 ​

Added ​

  • Node Modules Support: Introduced support for requiring and using node modules directly within Caja scripts (PR #69, #70).
  • Documentation: Added a comprehensive README.md to document the language and its tooling (PR #63).
  • Open Source License: Added the MIT License to the project (PR #68).

Fixed/Changed ​

  • Tweaked the NPM deployment pipeline in GitHub Actions (removed provenance flag and adjusted workflows) (PR #62, #63, #66).

[v0.1.0-alpha.2] - 2026-08-18 ​

Added ​

  • CLI Versioning: Added a --version flag to the cajac CLI (PR #57, #58).

Fixed/Changed ​

  • Pipeline Fixes: Fixed the NPM publish GitHub Actions pipeline and upgraded the deployment Node version to 24 (PR #59, #60, #61).
  • Gitignore: Allowed npm/bin in .gitignore (PR #57).

[v0.1.0-alpha.1] - 2026-08-18 ​

This was the monumental initial release of the Caja Language, laying down the fundamental compilation pipeline, language features, and standard library.

Core Architecture ​

  • Pipeline Implementation: Built the core Lexer/Tokenizer, Pratt Parser, Semantic Analyzer, and Tree-Walking Evaluator (PR #2, #4, #5, #12).
  • Refactoring & Scoping: Refactored the compiler into an encoder and introduced block scoping (PR #13, #14).
  • NPM Integration: Configured initial GitHub Actions for deploying the cajac CLI to npm (PR #1, #55).

Language Features ​

  • Data Types & Structures: Implemented Primitives, Arrays, Native Dictionary Maps, Structs, and Date types (PR #17, #22, #40, #44).
  • Advanced Typing: Introduced Generics (for functions, structs, and aliases), Nullable Types, and a Nothing type for implicit returns. Enforced generic constraints and removed the permissive Any type (PR #40, #47, #50, #53).
  • Immutability & Purity: Enforced deep immutability and function purity inside the semantic analyzer (PR #54).
  • Functions & Flow: Added support for Higher-order functions, Inline arrow functions, Recursive functions with Tail Call Optimization, and declarative if-else expressions (PR #11, #15, #18, #19, #20, #48).
  • Variable Modifiers: Introduced let, const, and private access modifiers (PR #13, #37, #38).
  • Operators: Implemented the data-first pipe operator (|>), boolean logic (and, or, xor), prefix operators, exponential (^), and modulo (%) (PR #9, #10, #28, #29, #33, #52).

Standard Library (Built-ins) ​

  • Math: Added the math module with constants (like PI), functions, and math.rand() (PR #31, #35, #43).
  • Strings & Dates: Added robust string manipulation and date processing functions (PR #26, #27).
  • Casting: Implemented the cast module for safe type conversions (PR #46).
  • Collections: Added polymorphic array functions and map.delete for dictionaries (PR #24, #49).
  • Logging: Added the log module for console outputs (PR #36).
  • Migrated many built-in modules to use the new Generics system (PR #51).