Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Introduction

AURA is a plain-text language for describing media content. Authors write .aura files that capture the timing, credits, rights, vocabulary, and availability of a work — whether that work is a music track, a film, a podcast episode, or an audiobook chapter.

The aura tool reads those files and compiles them into binary formats the Hami engine loads at runtime.

What gets compiled

OutputContains
.atomA flat-array augmented interval tree. Every timed node — verse, line, scene, credit window, chapter, mood annotation — is stored as an entry with [start, end, duration] fields and queried at 60 fps by the engine.
.hamiA B-Tree manifest. Stores everything non-temporal: credits, vocabulary slugs, rights declarations, platform availability, art asset references. The .atom file points into the .hami lexical data region for string data.
.atlasA DTW warp path. Maps timestamps from a canonical recording to a variant stream — a dub, a live take, a radio edit — without duplicating the content nodes.

These three files are always published together for a given work. The engine memory-maps all three and holds them in RAM for the duration of a playback session.

How to use this documentation

  • Language Reference — start here if you are authoring .aura files. Syntax and Sigils covers the AURA language in full. Keyword Reference is the complete key vocabulary table. Conventions covers the ID system, reference grammar, and folder layout rules for every supported media type.

  • Compiler — read this if you are working on the aura tool itself. Architecture explains the lexer, parser, and emitter pipeline. Crate Structure documents the module layout and data type definitions.

  • Project Management — covers the aura init scaffolding command and the built-in history system (takes, marks, streams, rewind).

Current status

This is the 0.3.2-beta.2 release. The toolchain now features a standardized, high-contrast logging system and strict grammatical enforcement for multi-ID domain references. End-to-end compilation is stable.