# munificent/vigil

Vigil, the eternal morally vigilant programming language

Repository: https://github.com/munificent/vigil
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/vigil
Language: Python
License Family: other
Last push: 2022-09-26T22:21:21+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": 4990, "days_push": 1437, "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 3037, forks 63 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:39.138908+00:00)

## What it is
Vigil is an esoteric programming language implemented as a Python-based command-line interpreter, originally created for the January 2013 PLT Games competition. It enforces design-by-contract style oaths — `implore` preconditions and `swear` postconditions — and humorously 'punishes' any function that violates them at runtime by deleting it from the source code.

## Use cases
- design by contract programming language
- esoteric programming language examples
- learn how to build an interpreter in Python
- programming language that deletes buggy code
- funny programming languages for a talk or article
- runtime assertion and contract checking

## When to choose
- You want a small, readable Python codebase for studying or teaching how a programming language interpreter works
- You want a memorable, humorous demonstration of design-by-contract enforcement for presentations, courses, or writing

## When to avoid
- You need a language for real or production software — Vigil is a 2013 competition joke whose runtime deletes offending source code
- You need active maintenance, a license, a package ecosystem, or community support

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: programming-language, interpreter, parser
- domain: programming-languages, parsers, testing
- platform: cross-platform, cli, python
- tags: esoteric-language, joke-language, design-by-contract, plt-games, runtime-verification, humor, toy-language, language-implementation

## Member repositories
- munificent/vigil (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:39.138908+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 2026-08-30T07:29:27.398100+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/munificent/vigil (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:39.138908+00:00, sha 625d4617a198)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.