Blog
News, tutorials, and deep dives into building native apps with Perry.
Building a GC for a Native TypeScript Compiler: Decisions, Surprises, and How It's Going
Perry compiles TypeScript to native code with LLVM — which means it needs a real garbage collector. The decisions we made, the bugs that left no evidence, the CI gates that couldn't fail, and where the numbers stand against Node and a refcounting AOT competitor.
Compiling Claude Code: One Minified Bundle, 160 Compiler Fixes
We pointed Perry at the 13 MB minified cli.js that npm ships for Claude Code and tried to turn it into a native binary. A month later it launches, logs in, streams a real API response, and paints what you type — and 160 pull requests had landed in Perry, from a no-op MessageChannel to a missing GC write barrier on RegExp headers.
Shipping a Watch-Only App to the App Store (When Nothing Else Will)
Every documented way to upload a standalone watchOS app to the App Store fails — altool, iTMSTransporter, xcodebuild, even Xcode 26's Organizer all refuse the watchOS platform. Here's the undocumented workaround that works and keeps arm64_32 for older watches: an ITSWatchOnlyContainer iOS stub, uploaded with iTMSTransporter.
Real npm Packages Now Compile: axios, zod, express — and a Conformance Sweep
The ~270 releases from v0.5.875 to v0.5.1146 weren't about one benchmark — they were about making real npm packages compile and run. axios, zod v4, express, fastify, and hono now work; test262 parity jumped (String 60→79%, Array 61→72%); Windows went Fluent with Mica; and DatePicker + drag & drop landed on every platform.
What aya_koto's Benchmark Taught Us About Perry's GC
A reader benchmarked Perry on AtCoder ABC451D and measured it 3.85× slower than Bun. A silent regression had widened the gap to 6.59× since. The fix wasn't where we expected, the deliberate GC trade-off it exposed was real, and Perry v0.5.875 now ties Bun on the same bench: 425 ms vs 431 ms.
Auto-Update, a Live Inspector, and the Compiler That Halved Itself
Perry v0.5.306 → v0.5.359 in four days — 53 patch releases, ~30 issues closed, and three big things landed: perry/updater for desktop auto-update, a live inspector at localhost:7676, and a compiler refactor that shrank the four biggest files by 33–91%.
Generational GC, Lazy JSON, and Benchmarks That Hold Up to Scrutiny
Perry v0.5.174 → v0.5.306 in three days, plus the GC and JSON work that landed alongside. The generational GC ships as default. The Small String Optimization ships as default. The JSON pipeline gets a lazy tape that lands at 75 ms median on validate-and-roundtrip — best in the dynamic-typing pack. The benchmarks page is rewritten with RUNS=11 median + p95 + σ, simdjson and AssemblyScript+json-as added as peers, and every weakness Perry has surfaced honestly.
npm Distribution, perry dev, and Winning Every Benchmark
Perry v0.5.80 → v0.5.174 in six days. @perryts/perry ships on npm for all seven supported platforms. perry dev adds watch-mode auto-recompile on top of an in-memory AST cache and on-disk per-module object cache. json_roundtrip closes its last gap — Perry now wins every benchmark against both Node.js and Bun.
Optimizing Everything: One Week, 68 Releases, and a 547x JSON Speedup
Perry v0.5.13 → v0.5.80 in seven days. JSON.parse closes a 547x gap to Node. mimalloc lands as the global allocator. Inline caches, shape transitions, typed buffer slots, i32-native bitwise ops, scalar replacement, and a native event loop that keeps Fastify and WebSocket servers alive.
From Cranelift to LLVM: How Perry Got 24x Faster
Perry's backend migration from Cranelift to LLVM is finished. The initial cutover made benchmarks 70x slower — then six targeted optimizations brought Perry to 14/15 wins against Node.js, with up to 24.6x speedups.
tvOS, Cross-Compile iOS from Linux, and Perry Login
Perry v0.4.24: tvOS as the 10th compilation target, cross-compile iOS and macOS from Linux via ld64.lld, perry login with usage-based billing, Windows UI overhaul, macOS notarization, and 120 commits in 5 days.
True Multi-Threading, Compile-Time i18n, and watchOS
Perry v0.4.0: real OS threads with compile-time safety, a zero-ceremony internationalization system for 30+ locales, watchOS as the 9th compilation target, audio and camera APIs, and a parallel compiler pipeline.
Cross-Compile to Windows, iOS Game Loops, and 100% Test Parity
103 commits in one week: cross-compile to Windows from Linux via lld-link, iOS game loop support, crash reporting, a two-stage Hub build pipeline, and the self-hosting compiler hits 68/68 deterministic test parity.
The Full Pipeline: Docs, Distribution, and WidgetKit
82 commits in one week: a 49-page documentation site, automated App Store and Play Store publishing, Homebrew and APT packages, native WidgetKit extensions from TypeScript, new widgets, http/https modules, and a self-hosting LLVM compiler.
From Compiler to Ecosystem: React, Databases, and Cloud Builds
Perry grows from a compiler into a full ecosystem. perry/ui at the core, Prisma-compatible ORMs for MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite, universal push notifications, distributed builds with App Store publishing, and a React compatibility layer — all in one week.
All Six Platforms, Full Feature Parity
20+ native UI widgets, a Canvas widget, Table views, system notifications, keychain access, multi-window support, and full feature parity across macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Android, Linux, and Windows — all from a single TypeScript codebase.
Plugin Systems Are a Performance Tax
Plugin architectures trade performance for extensibility. But what if extensibility happened at build time instead of runtime? Compile-time composition gives you both — zero overhead, full flexibility.
Compiling Hono, tRPC, and Strapi to Native Binaries
Perry now compiles three major TypeScript frameworks — Hono, tRPC, and Strapi — into native ARM64 executables. They compile in under a second, produce binaries under 2 MB, and run without crashes.
Building Pry: A Native JSON Viewer in TypeScript
A walkthrough of building Pry, a native JSON viewer compiled from TypeScript to machine code with the Perry runtime and GC linked in and no webview.
Cross-Platform Native UI from TypeScript
How Perry maps one TypeScript codebase to platform widgets across its documented targets, including the platform-specific limitations and prerequisites.
Introducing Perry
Perry compiles supported TypeScript to standalone native executables with its runtime and GC linked in, without requiring an external Node.js installation or JavaScript engine.