Thor build tool

Thor is Zap’s project build tool. It keeps the compiler command, import maps, native linker flags, and dependencies in one thor.toml file. Thor lives in the tools/thor submodule of the Zap repository, but it can also be installed as its own project.

Create a project

Create a scaffold and enter it:

thor new hello
cd hello
thor run

The generated project has an entry file, a thor.toml, and a build/ directory for outputs. Thor uses the compiler’s normal prelude, so common standard-library names such as List are available without a long collection.List spelling.

Build and run

thor build
thor run

Useful command-line overrides are:

thor build --compiler /path/to/zapc
thor build -o build/custom-app
thor build -O2
thor build -- --emit-ir

The -- marker passes the remaining flags directly to zapc. thor run builds first and then executes the selected output.

Configure a project

Here is a small configuration:

name = "hello"
version = "0.1.0"
out = "build/"
entry = "src/main.zp"
optimization = "O2"
flags = "-Lnative -lm"

[imports]
"@shared" = "../shared/src"

[dependencies]
"zap-toml" = { url = "https://github.com/thezaplang/zap-toml", version = "0.1.0", commit = "..." }

entry is the source file passed to the compiler. out selects the output directory, flags adds compiler or linker flags, and optimization accepts O0 through O3. Entries in [imports] become compiler import-map flags.

Dependencies are restored under vendor/<name> and their own build metadata is used when present. Thor does not copy Zap’s standard library into each project: it invokes the selected zapc, which resolves the standard library from that compiler installation.

Add a dependency

thor add https://github.com/example/widget
thor build

thor add records the dependency in thor.toml. The next build restores and builds it before compiling the project.

Build Thor from source

The repository version is bootstrapped with the Zap compiler, then rebuilt by Thor:

git clone https://github.com/thezaplang/thor
cd thor
./build.sh
./build/thor build

zapc must be available in PATH. The bootstrap build also restores Thor’s pinned zap-toml dependency.