Models & Pipelines (Advanced)

See also: AI Integration (Learn) for the basics and the ![model] effect.

Status Summary

Sailfin’s AI story is two layers:

Layer	Status	Notes
![model] effect	Reserved	Declarable and propagated from function signatures, but 0.8 has no shipped model detector or runtime API.
model / prompt / tool / pipeline block keywords	Removed	These keywords have been removed from the language parser and compiler. AI functionality is being delivered as the sfn/ai library capsule, planned post-1.0.

The ![model] Effect (Reserved)

The ![model] effect can be declared today and propagates through resolved calls like other declared effects. It is reserved for the future sfn/ai capsule, however: 0.8 ships no model-specific detector or runtime API.

fn ai_call(model_name: string, input: string) -> string ![model] {
    // implemented in sfn/ai capsule (post-1.0)
    return "";
}

fn summarize_invoice(invoice: string) -> string ![model, io] {
    let payload = redact(invoice);
    let summary = ai_call("summarizer", payload);
    print(summary);
    return summary;
}

In this example the declared effect on ai_call propagates to summarize_invoice; that generic signature propagation should not be confused with a shipped model invocation boundary.

The sfn/ai Capsule (Planned Post-1.0)

The sfn/ai capsule will provide:

• Model invocation functions carrying ![model] in their signatures
• Typed output schemas and structured response parsing
• Tool dispatch for model-orchestrated function calls
• Provider adapters (OpenAI, Anthropic, and others)

Because these are library functions, not keywords, they can be versioned and updated independently of compiler releases. The ![model] effect gates the entire capsule surface at the language level.

What Is Not Shipped

• model { ... } block declarations — removed from the language
• prompt system { ... } / prompt user { ... } blocks — removed
• tool Name { ... } declarations — removed
• pipeline Name { ... } declarations — removed
• Tensor<...> types, training blocks, PyTorch/Ollama adapters — not implemented

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The sfn/ai capsule that will host runtime AI behaviour is post-1.0 work. See the roadmap.