Glyph: UPLC to RISC-V Compilation Pipeline

Glyph compiles Untyped Plutus Core (UPLC) to RISC-V and ships a CEK runtime written in Zig.

Project Structure

The project is organized into a CLI tool with a built-in serializer for UPLC, as well as a runtime written in Zig.

• src/bin: A CLI tool to interact with Glyph.
• src/serializer.rs: A parser and serializer for UPLC code.
• runtime: A CEK Machine with multiple entry-points written in Zig and compiled to RISC-V.

Installing Glyph

Installing Glyph from a prebuilt binary can be done with the following command(s). Replace the version with the most up-to-date release.

Using Shell Script:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/input-output-hk/glyph/releases/download/v0.1.7/glyph-installer.sh | sh

Using Powershell Script:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/input-output-hk/glyph/releases/download/v0.1.7/glyph-installer.ps1 | iex"

Building

Requirements

To build the project, you need Rust and Cargo, Zig, and a RISC-V toolchain.

On Debian based systems:

sudo apt-get install -y gcc-riscv64-unknown-elf

On MacOS:

brew install riscv64-elf-gcc

Zig should be available on your PATH (see https://ziglang.org/download/).

Build Command(s)

Then, run:

cargo build
cargo test

Usage

Command-Line Interface

The CLI provides several commands for working with UPLC code:

Compile UPLC to RISC-V

glyph compile --encoding text --file program.uplc

This produces program.elf in the current working directory.

Run a RISC-V program with optional UPLC input

glyph run --program-file program.elf --encoding text --file input.uplc

If your input program does not require a script argument, use --no-input with compile and omit --file when running.

Input encodings

• --encoding text parses human-readable UPLC text.
• --encoding cbor expects CBOR-encoded flat bytes (default).
• --encoding flat expects flat-encoded bytes.
• --hex decodes hex input for cbor or flat encodings.

Build from plutus.json

The build subcommand compiles validator bundles from plutus.json.

glyph build --file plutus.json --validator example.main.else --output program.elf

When the bundle only has a single validator, --validator can be omitted.

BitVMX emulator (demo support)

Glyph exposes BitVMX-CPU emulator capabilities for demo workflows. The mapping and ROM commitment outputs follow the emulator log line format, with instruction mapping sorted by key for deterministic output.

Generate the opcode -> Bitcoin Script mapping:

glyph bitvmx instruction-mapping --out instruction_mapping.txt

Generate the ROM commitment for an ELF:

glyph bitvmx rom-commitment --elf program.elf --out rom_commitment.txt

Execute an ELF with input and print stdout + exit code:

glyph bitvmx execute --elf program.elf --stdout --input 11111111

Bundle mapping + commitment + manifest:

glyph bitvmx bundle --elf program.elf --out-dir ./bitvmx_artifacts

On macOS, a RISC-V toolchain is required (see the build section for brew install riscv64-elf-gcc).

Features

• Parsing and serialization of UPLC code
• Evaluation of serialized UPLC terms using a CEK machine

Status

This project is in active development and should be considered experimental until the first stable release.