rugo

Rugo

Ruby syntax - Shell power - Go binaries.

In a world of software aboundance, agents create your favorite languages.

Will they work? maybe.

Will it burn the planet? perhaps, in the meantime, we'll have great companies.

Can we escape this? In a world currently dominated by software, unlikely.

In a future where code will be written by agents, do we even care about languages? maybe not.

[!WARNING] In case it's not clear enough, Rugo is an agent product, driven by Opus 4.6. Treat it like a ☢️ experiment, totally subject to break.

Features

• Ruby-like syntax
• Compiles to native binaries — no runtime needed
• Shell fallback — unknown commands run as shell commands, like Bash
• Modules with namespaces
• Go stdlib bridge - call Go standard library functions directly
• User modules
• Error handling
• Built-in BATS like test support with rats
• Concurrency
• Lambdas — first-class anonymous functions
• Lightweight, Go-like OOP
• Built-in testing and benchmarking

Influences

Rugo stands on the shoulders of giants:

• Ruby (syntax, blocks)
• Go (compilation, structs)
• Crystal (spawn concurrency)
• V (try/or error handling)
• Zig (inline catch)
• Bash (shell fallback, pipes)
• BATS (test runner)
• Rust (inline tests alongside code).
• Elixir (Lambdas)

Ruby-like syntax

def greet(name)
  puts "Hello, #{name}!"
end

greet("World")

scores = [90, 85, 72]
for score in scores
  if score >= 90
    puts "#{score} → A"
  else
    puts "#{score} → B"
  end
end

Shell fallback

ls -la | head -3
name = `whoami`
puts "I'm #{name}"

Lambdas

double = fn(x) x * 2 end
puts double(5)

add = fn(a, b) a + b end
puts add(2, 3)

Modules

use "str"
use "conv"

puts str.upper("hello rugo")
puts conv.to_i("42") + 8

Go stdlib bridge

import "math"
import "strings"

puts math.sqrt(144.0)
puts strings.to_upper("hello")

Error handling

import "strconv"

hostname = try `hostname` or "localhost"
puts "Running on #{hostname}"

n = try strconv.atoi("nope") or 0
puts n

Concurrency

a = spawn 2 + 2
b = spawn 3 * 3

puts a.value
puts b.value

Structs

struct Dog
  name
  breed
end

rex = Dog("Rex", "Labrador")
puts rex.name
puts rex.breed

Inline tests

use "test"

def add(a, b)
  return a + b
end

rats "add works"
  test.assert_eq(add(2, 3), 5)
end

Install

go install github.com/rubiojr/rugo@latest

Usage

rugo script.rg            # compile and run
rugo build script.rg      # compile to native binary
rugo rats script.rg       # run inline tests
rugo emit script.rg       # print generated Go code

Documentation

• Quickstart Guide
• Modules Reference

Built by someone who's not a compiler expert — just a curious developer dusting off compiler theory notes from 25 years ago, learning as he goes. Rugo is a labor of love, not a production tool.