# checkedc/checkedc

Checked C is an extension to C that lets programmers write C code with bounds checking and improved type-safety. The goal is to let people easily make their existing C code type-safe and eliminate entire classes of errors.

Repository: https://github.com/checkedc/checkedc
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/checkedc
Homepage: https://www.checkedc.org
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: c, programming-language, system-programming, clang, llvm, memory-safety, type-safety
Last push: 2024-10-07T04:20:00+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3844, "days_push": 695, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3255, forks 189 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:52.310810+00:00)

## What it is
Checked C is an extension to the C programming language that adds bounds checking and improved type safety through opt-in annotations, implemented as a fork of LLVM/Clang. This repository hosts the language specification, sample code, and tests, with a companion 3C tool for semi-automatically converting existing C code.

## Use cases
- make existing C code memory-safe
- add bounds checking to C programs
- eliminate buffer overflow errors in C
- incrementally retrofit a C codebase with type safety
- compile C with a memory-safe compiler
- learn about safe C language design

## When to choose
- you maintain C code with memory-safety bugs and want incremental, opt-in hardening
- you need binary compatibility with existing C ABIs while adding bounds checks
- you want annotations that are erasable so code still builds with standard C compilers

## When to avoid
- you need a mainstream, widely supported toolchain for production today
- your project cannot adopt a Clang/LLVM fork
- you need temporal memory safety guarantees beyond what the current extension fully provides

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: programming-language, type-system, security, compiler
- domain: programming-languages, security, developer-tools, compilers
- platform: cpp, c, windows, cross-platform
- tags: memory-safety, bounds-checking, c-extension, clang, llvm, language-specification, retrofitting, type-safety, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- checkedc/checkedc (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:52.310810+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:43:53.062032+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/checkedc/checkedc (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:52.310810+00:00, sha 16eca0e4f662)
  - homepage: https://www.checkedc.org (fetched 2026-08-29T09:36:49.602792+00:00, sha e9f28f141901)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.