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Draton Early Tooling Preview

This release is the first public Draton developer tooling preview.

It is meant for early adopters who want a real installable package, not just repository internals.

What is included

  • Draton compiler and CLI
  • drat fmt
  • drat lint
  • drat task
  • drat lsp
  • canonical-syntax examples and a small sample project

What this preview is for

  • trying the Draton CLI without building from source
  • testing the canonical syntax workflow
  • formatting, linting, building, and editing small Draton projects
  • giving feedback on early tooling experience

What is intentionally limited

  • formatter comment round-tripping is still conservative, so some comment-bearing files are skipped instead of rewritten
  • LSP completion is basic and editor support is still an MVP
  • binaries are unsigned
  • macOS binaries are not notarized
  • Linux builds still depend on a small set of standard system runtime libraries such as libstdc++, libffi, libz, and libtinfo

Supported platforms

Supported in this preview:

  • Linux x86_64
  • Linux aarch64
  • macOS x86_64
  • macOS aarch64
  • Windows x86_64

Windows aarch64 is not part of this preview target set.

Install paths

Choose one:

  • scripted install with install.sh
  • scripted install with install.ps1
  • manual archive download and extraction

Full details: install.md

Verification steps

After install:

drat --version
drat fmt --check examples/early-preview/hello-app/src
drat lint examples/early-preview/hello-app/src
cd examples/early-preview/hello-app
drat task
drat task build
drat lsp

Early feedback boundary

This preview is aimed at:

  • tool usability
  • installation friction
  • CLI ergonomics
  • formatter/linter output quality
  • basic editor support

It is not reopening the language surface or canonical syntax rules.