# rui314/minilisp

A readable lisp in less than 1k lines of C

Repository: https://github.com/rui314/minilisp
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/minilisp
Language: C
License Family: other
Last push: 2024-02-18T22:49:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5261, "days_push": 927, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1562, forks 183 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:03.978778+00:00)

## What it is
MiniLisp is a small, readable Lisp interpreter written in under 1000 lines of heavily commented C. It supports integers, symbols, cons cells, lexical scoping, closures, macros, and a copying garbage collector.

## Use cases
- learn how a Lisp interpreter is implemented in C
- study a minimal garbage collector implementation
- read a small complete interpreter codebase
- run simple Lisp expressions from the command line
- teach programming language concepts like closures and macros
- use as a starting point for building your own interpreter

## When to choose
- you want to read and understand a complete Lisp implementation quickly
- you need a tiny educational interpreter with clean, commented code
- you want a minimal Lisp for Unix-like systems with no dependencies

## When to avoid
- you need a production-grade Lisp with strings, error handling, and performance
- you need a maintained project with a license for commercial use
- you need a full-featured Scheme or Common Lisp implementation

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: interpreter, programming-language, parser
- domain: programming-languages, education, developer-tools
- platform: cli, c
- tags: lisp, minimal-implementation, garbage-collector, readable-code, weekend-project, interpreter, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- rui314/minilisp (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:03.978778+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 2026-08-30T08:32:44.384669+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/rui314/minilisp (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:03.978778+00:00, sha 0e6d325ab0f8)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.