Source in.
Process out.

Yggdrasil had already run substantial Lux programs. RedMagic turns that growing pile into a named layer: the programs that make a minimal runtime feel like a system.

Its first commit collects the TCP/IP stack, persistent disk adapter, secure-random bridge, pure-Lux TLS 1.3 client and server, GPU programs, font demo, terminal, and TCP REPL. Yggdrasil’s build compiles them with the sibling Lux compiler and installs one content-addressed module pack in the boot image.

RedMagic / ansi_terminal.luxcaptured output

480 × 160 captureAdwaita Mono AAvirtio-gpu

The next commit made it behave like a terminal, not a framebuffer demo.

RedMagic’s renderer now marks dirty cells, batches glyph vertices into a VBO, presents only the affected rectangle, drains serial input without blocking, and paces frames at sixteen milliseconds. It prefers the reusable gpu_text virgl pipeline and retains a 2D CPU-blit fallback. The optimization belongs in the system library because it is policy about text, cells, and frames—not a kernel concern.

Commit 3b467ff extracts lux-frontend: lexer, parser, type inference, Core lowering, and the Yggdrasil backend, with no filesystem, database, network, or native-code backend attached.

The public call is compile_to_yggdrasil. A caller supplies source and a SourceProvider; the frontend expands use dependencies, checks types, translates each function, and returns encoded modules, aliases, and an optional main/0 entry. On the host, the provider can read files. In the kernel, it reads a boot-shipped source pack.

The kernel imports lux-frontend without std, gives its recursive pipeline a bounded eight-mebibyte stack, and exposes two operations through the same SQ/CQ port model used for disks, networks, random bytes, and the GPU.

Successful output is loaded as immutable, content-addressed modules. Aliases are rebound only after load. That matters because the previous runtime commit can turn external calls between sealed modules into direct native calls: source compiled inside the kernel enters the same optimized code world as boot-time RedMagic.

Running is intentionally separate. OP_LUX_RUN resolves apply/0 and launches it in a disposable process. A waiter monitors that process, formats a value or exit reason, and kills it if the caller’s timeout expires. A bad program can fail, block, or loop without wedging the service port.

Compilation is not a privileged command bolted beside the process model. It is another process-owned service inside it.

RedMagic’s in-flight repl_core opens port kind five from Lux. Everything above that primitive—line editing, continuations, definition replacement, session state, diagnostics, and formatted results—stays in Lux.

fn repl_init() -> ReplState {
    ReplState { luxc: ygg::port_open(5), defs: [], cont: "", depth: 0 }
}

fn rc_compile(state: ReplState, source: String) -> String {
    rc_port_call(state.luxc, 1, source, 0)
}

fn rc_run(state: ReplState, entry: String) -> String {
    rc_port_call(state.luxc, 2, entry, 5000)
}

Expressions are wrapped in a temporary main, compiled, and run. Function, struct, type, extern, and use definitions persist for the session and are resubmitted as one unit. Both the serial GPU terminal and the TCP REPL share the same core. The system is no longer limited to executing the program chosen when the ISO was built.

The current self-test contract checks the dangerous edges, but the service remains an in-flight M12 change until its repository commit and full QEMU acceptance run land.