SPIRVksi

SPIRVksi is a fictional, open-source software framework intended to illustrate tooling concepts around SPIR-V, the binary intermediate representation used by Vulkan, OpenGL, and related APIs. Conceived as a study project for graphics researchers and compiler developers, SPIRVksi provides a modular environment for constructing, analyzing, and transforming SPIR-V modules through a language-neutral intermediate layer. The project is described here as an independent educational reference and is not affiliated with Khronos Group.

Its design goals include lowering the barrier to experimenting with SPIR-V, enabling rapid iteration of optimization and transformation passes, and supporting cross-platform development. SPIRVksi emphasizes portability, safety, and extensibility, offering a clean separation between front-end parsing, intermediate representations, and back-end emission.

Architecturally, SPIRVksi comprises a front-end that accepts a compact shader-like input language or directly consumes SPIR-V, a mid-level intermediate representation to express semantic information independently of a source language, a pass manager to orchestrate analyses and transformations, and back-ends that emit SPIR-V binaries or textual representations. Additional components include a validator, a disassembler, and a visualization tool for inspecting module structure.

Usage scenarios include education, research on optimization strategies, and tooling experimentation. The project is designed to interoperate with existing SPIR-V utilities and to serve as a reference implementation for teaching compiler pipelines in graphics courses. As a hypothetical project, its status and license reflect a fictional setup.