language-identity.md

Superseded by HoloScript Spec v0.1 (docs/spec/holoscript-spec-v0.1.md) where they disagree.

HoloScript Language Identity

Authority: canonical language-positioning contract. Founder direction confirmed 2026-07-16. Implementation claims remain subordinate to code and receipts.

Canonical identity

HoloScript is a general-purpose semantic systems programming language under active construction. It is intended to program applications, services, runtimes, compilers, simulations, agents, devices, operating layers, interfaces, and spatial worlds.

The language uses compiler-visible declarations, traits, effects, state graphs, and compositions so meaning survives optimization and cross-target lowering. Declarative syntax is a programming mechanism. It is not a claim that HoloScript is a domain-specific language, configuration format, asset schema, prompt wrapper, or scene-description layer.

One language, multiple surfaces

.hs, .hsplus, and .holo are capability surfaces of one language. They currently route different grammar and runtime strengths, but none is a separate product category:

Surface	Current strongest lane	Language direction
.hs	Logic, processes, headless programs, and data pipelines	General computation lowered to native and VM execution
.hsplus	Typed behavior, traits, agents, state, and effects	Reusable systems behavior with explicit effects and resource contracts
.holo	Whole-system composition, environments, platforms, and orchestration	Programs that bind logic, behavior, resources, deployment, and embodiment

.hsplus is intentionally broader than agent brains. It is the TypeScript-like typed semantic application surface: modules, structs, interfaces, functions, templates, reactive state, state machines, reactions, pipelines, UI/service/device behavior, and agent cognition can share one compiler-visible model. "TypeScript-like" describes its productive authoring altitude, not JavaScript compatibility or complete current type/runtime coverage. Some accepted declarations and bodies remain raw or partially lowered and must not be presented as semantically closed until their receipts say so.

The compiler may expose an AST or intermediate representation for each surface. That makes HoloScript useful as an IR; it does not make HoloScript "only an IR" or place TypeScript, Rust, C++, an engine, or a generated artifact above it as the real implementation language.

Systems-language acceptance gates

HoloScript earns systems-language closure by owning these capabilities rather than asserting them in positioning copy:

1. Resource semantics — memory, ownership/lifetimes or an equivalent safe model, handles, cleanup, bounded allocation, and an explicit unsafe boundary.
2. Machine contracts — data layout, alignment, calling conventions, stable ABI surfaces, FFI, and target feature detection.
3. Execution semantics — concurrency, atomics, effects, scheduling, determinism, failure, cancellation, and hardware-facing I/O.
4. Sovereign lowering — native code generation and owned VM backends that do not require a third-party engine to give a HoloScript program meaning.
5. Systems tooling — reproducible builds, package/link semantics, debugging, profiling, diagnostics, sanitizer-equivalent checks, and receipt-backed verification.
6. Progressive self-hosting — compiler, runtime, standard library, and system services move into HoloScript as the language becomes capable of carrying them safely.

Generated C++, TypeScript, Rust, shader code, engine projects, and deployment manifests are useful bridge outputs. They are not substitutes for these gates.

Current honesty boundary

The repository already contains real parsers, ASTs, traits, interpreters, runtimes, VM paths, compiler backends, policy-gated I/O, and provenance machinery. Coverage differs by surface and target. A checked-in product tracer now executes one causal .holo → .hsplus → .hs → .holo path and returns a construct-level semantic-closure receipt; the .hs policy executes both natively and on the cognitive VM. This is a demonstrated bounded subset, not general language closure. Direct whole-document .hsplus lowering, recursive parameter-frame semantics, broader native/VM coverage, a stable memory/ABI model, and self-hosting are not yet closed.

Therefore:

• Say "general-purpose semantic systems programming language under active construction."
• Name the exact shipped path when claiming execution or portability.
• Name the missing acceptance gate when a path still relies on bootstrap TypeScript, Rust, generated C++, or an external runtime.
• Do not solve an implementation gap by shrinking the language identity to the currently easiest demo surface.

Implementation reconciliation lives in spec-vs-reality-gap.md. The executable three-surface contract lives in three-surface-semantic-closure.md. The strategic architecture bar lives in ../../NORTH_STAR.md.

Wording contract

Use these forms in current canonical and public surfaces:

• Primary: "HoloScript is a general-purpose semantic systems programming language."
• Qualified current-state form: "HoloScript is a general-purpose semantic systems programming language under active construction."
• Mechanism: "HoloScript supports declarative, imperative, reactive, and compositional programming surfaces whose semantics remain visible to the compiler."
• Spatial scope: "Spatial computing is a first-class domain and execution target, not the boundary of the language."
• IR scope: "HoloScript source lowers through semantic IR; the language is both an authoring language and an executable implementation target."

Do not use these as umbrella definitions:

• "a DSL for VR/AR"
• "a declarative scene language"
• "an asset or world-description format"
• "an IR above the real implementation language"
• "a wrapper around Unity, Unreal, Three.js, TypeScript, Rust, or C++"

Specific internal DSLs may keep the term when it is technically accurate—for example a shader, query, policy, or intent sublanguage. The prohibition is against reducing HoloScript itself to one of those sublanguages.