An Operating System for Instruments (Όργανα), written in attolang. Instruments are multimodal dataflow programs — authored as node graphs possibly using the attoflow editor, compiled, and run in real time.
Each instrument is a self-contained .atto program that defines its Functionality. The System compiles these programs runs them with hot-reload support.
Listen to the introductory podcast — Growing Instruments with the Organic Assembler (SoundCloud, YouTube).
See an example instrument and the full language specification.
| Target | Description |
|---|---|
| attolang | Core language library — type system, expression parser, type inference, serialization |
| attoflow | Visual node editor for authoring instruments (SDL3 + Dear ImGui) |
| attoc | Standalone compiler (.atto → C++) |
| attoruntime | Instrument runtime with GUI and audio bindings |
- Rich type system — scalars (
u8–s64,f32/f64,bool,string), containers (vector,map,list,set,queue), fixed-size arrays, tensors, named struct types, function types - First-class literals, symbols, and types —
literal<T,V>,symbol<name,type>,type<T>as compile-time values - Bidirectional type inference with automatic integer upcasting and iterator-to-reference decay
- Bang-driven control flow — nodes postfixed with
!have explicit execution ordering via bang signals - Inline expressions — node arguments can embed literals, variable refs, and sub-expressions directly
- Lambda construction — expression nodes can be captured as callable lambdas with automatic capture/parameter resolution
- FFI support — declare external C functions and call them from the graph
- Standard library modules — e.g.
decl_import "std/imgui"for ImGui bindings
Requires CMake 3.25+ and a C++20 compiler. SDL3 and Dear ImGui are fetched automatically on Linux/macOS; on Windows they are managed via vcpkg.
# install SDL3 build dependencies
sudo apt-get install libx11-dev libxext-dev libxrandr-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libxfixes-dev libxss-dev libxtst-dev libwayland-dev libxkbcommon-dev libegl-dev libgles-dev
cmake -B build && cmake --build build --parallel# install vcpkg if you haven't already
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
./vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake
cmake --build build --parallel --config ReleaseNew to the project? Start with the Instructions — a guide to interpreting and following instructions, operating on the codebase, and building instruments with the Organic Assembler. It covers everything from the build system and architectural layers to the anatomy of an instrument and the audio callback pattern.
For naming philosophy, see Names. For the full documentation suite: Architecture, Language Spec, Patterns, Thinking, Style, Coding, Changelog.
MIT — see LICENSE.