The JCB Architecture Paper is Published

[Llewellynvdm]

What I have published is the architecture of the compiler you already use.

Joomla Component Builder: Contextual Compilation Architecture
Edition 1.0.0 · 16 September 2026
https://architecture.joomlacomponentbuilder.com

JCB is a compiler. You give it structured intent — fields, views, relationships, reusable code — and it produces native components, modules, and plugins. For a long time that coordination lived in the compiler, the videos, and the people who have been building with it. This paper writes that coordination down.

A field is a small definition: a type, a name, a label, a few settings. After compilation that same definition is also a database column, a form field, a list query, a sort, a search, a language string, and table metadata. The architecture is how those destinations stay consistent when the definition is reused, the context changes, and you compile again.

That is the practical reason to read it:

• Change the definition once. Regenerate. Do not hand-edit the five places a field fans out to.
• Treat the blueprint as the reviewable artifact. Treat the compiled extension as a build product.
• Extrusion and marked-code recovery are part of the same lifecycle, not afterthoughts.
• If you work on the compiler, there is now a source map from the idea to the implementation.

Where to start

Do not start with the formal chapters.

1. Hello World — blueprint to three products
2. The Greeting field across the compiler
3. Reading guide — pick a path (white-paper reader, implementer, investigator)
4. White paper — the continuous narrative, when you want it

Contributors working on compiler internals should also use the source map and the implementation guide.

Links

• Publication: https://architecture.joomlacomponentbuilder.com
• Source repository: https://github.com/joomengine/architecture
• Cite as: vandermerwe2026jcbarchitecture

Prose, mathematics, and authored diagrams are CC BY 4.0. Publication tooling and the executable reference examples are MIT.

If you teach JCB, publish a blueprint, or write about how the compiler behaves, this is the account to point at.

Thank you to everyone building with JCB. You have been using this architecture for years. Now it has an address.