Cross-Language Consistency

Voltaire primitives are designed to be identical across TypeScript, Zig, Swift, and Rust. The APIs match as closely as possible while respecting each language’s idioms.

Data-First Design

Every primitive is represented using the simplest possible data structure in each language:

Language	Address Representation
TypeScript	`Uint8Array` (branded)
Zig	`[20]u8`
Swift	`Data` (20 bytes)
Rust	`[u8; 20]`

No wrapper classes. No hidden state. Just bytes.

Functions Operate on Data

Methods take the data as the first parameter, similar to Go or Zig:

TypeScript
Zig
Swift

import { Address } from '@tevm/voltaire'

const addr = Address('0x742d35Cc6634C0532925a3b844Bc9e7595f51e3e')
Address.toHex(addr)
Address.isZero(addr)
Address.equals(addr, other)

const Address = @import("voltaire").Address;

const addr = Address.fromHex("0x742d35Cc6634C0532925a3b844Bc9e7595f51e3e");
Address.toHex(addr);
Address.isZero(addr);
Address.equals(addr, other);

import Voltaire

let addr = Address("0x742d35Cc6634C0532925a3b844Bc9e7595f51e3e")
Address.toHex(addr)
Address.isZero(addr)
Address.equals(addr, other)

Why This Matters

Portable knowledge — Learn the API once, use it everywhere. A toHex in TypeScript works the same as toHex in Zig. LLM-friendly — AI assistants trained on one language can help with another. The patterns transfer directly. Predictable — No surprises when switching languages. Same function names, same parameter order, same behavior.

Language-Specific Conveniences

Each language adds idiomatic conveniences on top of the core API:

TypeScript: Instance methods (addr.toHex()) alongside static methods
Zig: Comptime validation and formatting
Swift: Protocol conformances (Equatable, Hashable, CustomStringConvertible)

These conveniences don’t change the underlying data or core function signatures.

Colocated Source Files

All language implementations live together in the same directory:

src/primitives/Address/
├── Address.zig      # Zig implementation
├── Address.swift    # Swift implementation
├── index.ts         # TypeScript implementation
├── toHex.js         # Shared JS function
├── toHex.zig        # Shared Zig function
└── ...

This makes it easy for both humans and LLMs to keep implementations in sync and see all versions of a function side-by-side.

Learn More

Branded Types

Type safety in TypeScript

Tree-Shakeable API

Functional imports for minimal bundles

Error Handling Skills

⌘I

Documentation Index

​Data-First Design

​Functions Operate on Data

​Why This Matters

​Language-Specific Conveniences

​Colocated Source Files

​Learn More