Grammaton UI Shell

Desktop UI shell (Cairo Shell peer) on an Erlang-style actor runtime in D — not a terminal or CLI shell.
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About The Project

Grammaton UI Shell is a non-frustrating Windows/Linux desktop UI shell: window management, compositing, and shell chrome in the same product category as Cairo Shell and similar structured desktops. It is built on an Erlang-style actor runtime in native D—not a REPL, command interpreter, or POSIX login shell.

Eliminate UI stutter and hangs by treating every UI component as an isolated lightweight process (fiber) under a supervision tree.

Docs (Antora): overview · architecture · build · status · branding

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Name and lore

Short name: Grammaton — the supervised desktop shell itself.

The name nods to Equilibrium: Grammaton Clerics who enforce calm, precise order, contrasted with the Overseer’s broader gaze. This project applies that idea to the desktop—many small, disciplined actors under supervision instead of one brittle UI thread—then returns to engineering: fibers, mailboxes, and a Cairo Shell–class shell on D.

Logos and themeable marks: BRANDING.adoc.

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Built With

• Language / build

  • 

  • DUB (dmd or ldc2)

• Runtime

  • Fiber actor runtime (libbeam_d)

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Getting Started

Requirements: DMD or LDC2, DUB.

dub test :libbeam_d
dub build

Phase 1 focus is libbeam_d. Graphics and shell UI are stubs until later phases.

Usage

Packages

Package	Role
libbeam_d	Core actor runtime: M:N fiber scheduler, lock-free MPSC mailbox, supervision (Phase 1–2)
libglaze_2d	2D graphics abstraction (Blend2D bindings, command batching) — Phase 3 stub
libshell_bridge	OS / Erlang IPC and raw Win32/X11 bindings — Phase 4 stub
actor_shell	Shell executable composing the libraries — Phase 5 stub

Implementation status

• ✓ Phase 1 — Fiber scheduler + actor mailbox (libbeam_d)

• ❏ Phase 2 — Supervisor linking / restart strategies

• ❏ Phase 3 — Blend2D / libglaze_2d

• ❏ Phase 4 — libshell_bridge IPC + OS bindings

• ❏ Phase 5 — ActorShell UI composition

Roadmap

See CHANGELOG.adoc and status.

Related

• shell-architecture — OpenShellOrg structured-shell thesis (related design canon; this repo lives under Desktop-Tooling)

• OpenShellOrg docs — ecosystem docs hub

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Open an issue before large changes.

Top contributors

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Contact

• Project: https://github.com/Desktop-Tooling/grammaton-ui-shell

• Branding: BRANDING.adoc

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