aowli — $9.99/month

The aowli interpreter and debugger, and the compiler backends that emit TypeScript, Python, and faithful JavaScript / WebAssembly — as maintained binaries, from one subscription and one command:

aowlup login AOWL-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

The documentation is public; the source is not.

Try it now — free, online, no download

Not open for sale yet — the price above is what it will cost. Ask on Discord to hear when it opens. Already bought it?

What the subscription buys

aowli-interp	A tree-walker and bytecode VM that execute nimony's post-semcheck typed AIF — the exact artifact the native backend consumes.
aowli-dbg	The interactive stepping debugger: runs the program once and stays paused between commands. step / next / finish, live breakpoints added mid-run, path-addressable --expand, time-travel snapshot / restore. Also what the aowlcode plugin's debug_session tool drives.
aowlts	Idiomatic TypeScript: real types, real control flow, readable output.
aowlpy	Idiomatic Python with type hints, on Python's own GC and arbitrary-precision int.
aowlweb	Faithful JavaScript and WebAssembly over one linear-memory model: nim-js, nim-js-link, nim-wasm, plus the runtime they link against.
Every update, immediately	Correctness fixes land here first. No version to buy again.
Three machines	Activate up to three at a time; release one from your licence page to move it.
Priority support	Issues from subscribers are answered first, on Discord, by the person who wrote it.

It does not buy the source. aoughwl/aowli, aowlweb, aowlts and aowlpy stay private.

After subscribing

1. Your key appears on screen and arrives by email.
2. Install aowlup if you have not, then:

   aowlup login YOUR-KEY

   That downloads the release, checks its sha256, activates this machine, and registers everything in the package. aowlup shim puts the tools on your PATH.
3. No aowlup? Download from your licence page, extract, and run bin/aowli-activate YOUR-KEY once.

After activation nothing needs the network. A new release needs one re-activation, which happens by itself while the key is stored on the machine.

How it is protected

The tools ship encrypted, under a key that is not in the download. Activating a machine fetches that key, wrapped so that only that machine can open it. A copied install has nothing to run, and there is no licence check to patch out — skipping the decryption skips the program. Every release uses a new key.

That does not make it impossible to get around: a paying customer can still lift a decrypted program out of their own process's memory. So every activation is watermarked to its licence, and a leaked build names the key that leaked it. We say this plainly because a licence system that claims to be uncrackable is lying to you.

Why a subscription and not a one-off

The tools are maintained against a moving toolchain: nimony changes, the backends chase it, and every release is re-sealed under a fresh key. A one-time price would be a promise to keep doing that forever for one payment, and the honest ways to keep that promise are all worse.

So: cancel whenever. Your key does not die when you cancel — it goes dormant, and restarting the subscription wakes the same key up with its machines still on it.

What it is honestly not

• Not a compiler. aowli runs typed AIF that nimony has already semantically analysed. The compiler, the parser and the other emitters stay free and open.
• Not complete parity with native. Two engines agree byte-for-byte with each other and are held against native compilation by a differential harness — but the harness has a denominator, and it is written down rather than rounded up. The backends are working cores, not finished products; each page says where the gaps are.
• Not a source licence, and not redistributable. One key, your machines.

Requirements

• Linux x86-64 with glibc ≥ 2.35 (Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+). The tools are self-contained.
• curl and tar (for aowlup login).
• A .s.aif to run — i.e. a nimony toolchain, which is free.
• Network once, to activate.

Questions before you subscribe: timbuktu_guy on Discord.