Innovation Keywords

Keywords unique to Forge that have no direct equivalent in other mainstream languages. These are not aliases – they introduce genuinely new constructs.

when Guards

Pattern matching with comparison guards. Unlike match, when tests a single value against comparison operators.

let score = 85
let grade = when score {
    >= 90 -> "A",
    >= 80 -> "B",
    >= 70 -> "C",
    >= 60 -> "D",
    else -> "F"
}
say grade  // "B"

The else arm is required and handles any unmatched case.

must

Unwraps a Result or crashes with a clear error message. Used when failure is unrecoverable.

let data = must fs.read("config.json")
// If the file doesn't exist, the program crashes with a descriptive error

safe

Null-safe execution block. If any expression inside safe would error, the block evaluates to null instead of crashing. Statement-only (cannot be used as an expression).

safe {
    let data = fs.read("maybe-missing.txt")
    say data
}
// If file is missing, execution continues silently

check … is not empty

Declarative validation. Checks a condition and produces a validation error if it fails.

check name is not empty
check age >= 0
check email contains "@"

retry N times

Automatically retries a block up to N times on failure.

retry 3 times {
    let resp = http.get("https://flaky-api.example.com/data")
    say resp.json
}

If all retries fail, the error from the last attempt is raised.

timeout N seconds

Limits execution time for a block. If the block does not complete within the time limit, it is interrupted.

timeout 5 seconds {
    let result = http.get("https://slow-api.example.com")
    say result.json
}

Note: This feature is experimental and may not interrupt all operations cleanly.

schedule every N units

Runs a block repeatedly on a schedule (cron-like).

schedule every 5 minutes {
    let status = http.get("https://api.example.com/health")
    if status.status != 200 {
        log.error("Health check failed!")
    }
}

Supported units: seconds, minutes, hours.

watch “path”

Monitors a file or directory for changes and executes the block when changes are detected.

watch "src/" {
    say "Files changed, rebuilding..."
    sh("cargo build")
}

ask “prompt”

Sends a prompt to an AI/LLM and returns the response. Requires AI configuration.

let answer = ask "What is the capital of France?"
say answer  // "Paris"

download “url” to “file”

Downloads a file from a URL and saves it to disk. Syntax sugar for http.download.

download "https://example.com/data.csv" to "data.csv"

crawl “url”

Fetches and parses a web page, returning structured data. Syntax sugar for http.crawl.

let page = crawl "https://example.com"
say page.title
say page.links

repeat N times

Executes a block exactly N times. A counted loop without a loop variable.

repeat 5 times {
    say "Hello!"
}

wait N units

Pauses execution for the specified duration.

wait 2 seconds
wait 500 milliseconds

Supported units: seconds, milliseconds, minutes.

grab … from “url”

Natural syntax for HTTP fetch. Assigns the response to a variable.

grab data from "https://api.example.com/users"
say data

emit value

Yields a value from a generator function. Natural equivalent of yield.

fn fibonacci() {
    let a = 0
    let b = 1
    loop {
        emit a
        let temp = a + b
        a = b
        b = temp
    }
}

hold expr

Awaits an async expression. Natural equivalent of await.

forge fetch_data() {
    let resp = hold http.get("https://api.example.com")
    return resp.json
}