the tokenizer is the ISA
A coding language built for AI, not people.
AI assistants write computer code all day — and every word they write costs time and money. curt is a programming language designed so they write far less of it: the same programs, a fraction of the words. Every claim on this page is measured, and you can reproduce it yourself.
Below is a small program — a web server that echoes back whatever you send it — written in curt. The big number is roughly how many "words" (tokens) an AI spends to write it; fewer means cheaper and faster. Don't worry if the code looks alien — it's meant for an AI to write, not for you to read.
what this actually is
An experiment, built in the open.
I'm not a compiler engineer. curt started as a question — could a programming language be designed for the way AI writes code, so it costs less to use? — and I built it by directing AI agents to design it, write it, test it, and measure it. That's fitting: it's a language for AI, made largely by AI.
What I can stand behind is the evidence. Every number on this site comes from a script anyone can run, and the honest results are all here — including where curt loses (on small, everyday tasks, plain Python is still cheaper). Judge the results, not my résumé.
measured, never estimated
Honest by construction: on small, everyday tasks, plain Python is still the cheapest — curt's edge shows up on larger programs and in catching and fixing mistakes. The full, mixed results (wins and losses) are on the benchmarks page.
why it might matter
Built for how AI writes — and measured like an experiment.
Most programming languages are designed for people to read. curt is designed around the one thing that costs real money when an AI writes code: how many tokens it takes. Every feature had to earn its place by being measured against the alternatives — and the tidy, human-readable version is something the tool can generate for you, not something you have to write.