A Vision for WebAssembly Support in Swift

visions/webassembly.md

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+# A Vision for WebAssembly Support in Swift
+
+## Introduction
+
+WebAssembly (abbreviated [Wasm](https://webassembly.github.io/spec/core/intro/introduction.html#wasm)) is a virtual 
+machine instruction set focused on portability, security, and high performance. It is vendor-neutral, designed and
+developed by [W3C](https://w3.org). An implementation of a WebAssembly virtual machine is usually called a
+*WebAssembly runtime*.
+
+One prominent spec-compliant implementation of a Wasm runtime in Swift is [WasmKit](https://github.com/swiftwasm/WasmKit). It is available as a Swift package, supports multiple
+host platforms, and has a simple API for interaction with guest Wasm modules.
+
+An application compiled to a Wasm module can run on any platform that has a Wasm runtime available. Despite its origins
+in the browser, it is a general-purpose technology that has use cases in client-side and
+server-side applications and services. WebAssembly support in Swift makes the language more appealing in those settings,
+and also brings it to the browser where it previously wasn't available at all. It facilitates a broader adoption of
+Swift in more environments and contexts.
+
+We can't anticipate every possible application Swift developers are going to create with Wasm, but we can provide a few
+examples of its possible adoption in the Swift toolchain itself. To quote
+[a GSoC 2024 idea](https://www.swift.org/gsoc2024/#building-swift-macros-with-webassembly):
+
+> WebAssembly could provide a way to build Swift macros into binaries that can be distributed and run anywhere,
+> eliminating the need to rebuild them continually.
+
+This can be applicable not only to Swift macros, but also for the evaluation of SwiftPM manifests and plugins.
+
+The WebAssembly instruction set has useful properties from a security perspective, as it has
+no interrupts or peripheral access instructions. Access to the underlying system is always done by calling
+explicitly imported functions, implementations for which are provided by an imported WebAssembly module or a WebAssembly
+runtime itself. The runtime has full control over interactions of the virtual machine with the outside world.
+
+WebAssembly code and data live in completely separate address spaces, with all executable code in a given module loaded
+and validated by the runtime upfront. Combined with the lack of "jump to address" and a limited set of control flow
+instructions that require explicit labels in the same function body, this makes a certain class of attacks impossible to
+execute in a correctly implemented spec-compliant WebAssembly runtime.
+
+In the context of Swift developer tools, arbitrary code execution during build time can be virtualized with Wasm.
+While Swift macros, SwiftPM manifests, and plugins are sandboxed on Darwin platforms, with Wasm we can provide stronger
+security guarantees on other platforms that have a compatible Wasm runtime available.
+
+The WebAssembly instruction set is designed with performance in mind. A WebAssembly module can be JIT-compiled or
+compiled on a client machine to an optimized native binary ahead of time. With recently accepted proposals to the Wasm
+specification it now supports features such as SIMD, atomics, multi-threading, and more. A WebAssembly runtime can
+generate a restricted subset of native binary code that implements these features with little performance overhead.
+
+This means that adoption of Wasm in developer tools does not imply unavoidable performance overhead. In fact, with
+security guarantees that virtualization brings there's no longer a need to spawn a separate process for each
+Swift compiler and SwiftPM plugin/manifest invocation. Virtualized Wasm binaries can run in the host process of a
+Wasm runtime, removing the overhead of new process setup and IPC infrastructure.
+
+### WebAssembly System Interface and the Component Model
+
+The WebAssembly virtual machine has no in-built support for I/O; instead, a Wasm module's access to I/O is dependent entirely upon the runtime that executes it.
+
+A standardized set of APIs implemented by a Wasm runtime for interaction with the host operating system is called
+[WebAssembly System Interface (WASI)](https://wasi.dev). A layer on top of WASI that Swift apps compiled to Wasm can already
+use thanks to C interop is [WASI libc](https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-libc). In fact, the current implementation of
+Swift stdlib and runtime for `wasm32-unknown-wasi` triple is based on this C library. It is important for WASI support in
+Swift to be as complete as possible to ensure portability of Swift code in the broader Wasm ecosystem.
+
+In the last few years, the W3C WebAssembly Working Group considered multiple proposals for improving the WebAssembly
+[type system](https://github.com/webassembly/interface-types) and
+[module linking](https://github.com/webassembly/module-linking). These were later subsumed into a combined
+[Component Model](https://component-model.bytecodealliance.org) proposal thanks to the ongoing work on
+[WASI Preview 2](https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/blob/main/preview2/README.md), which served as playground for
+the new design.
+
+The Component Model defines these core concepts:
+
+- A *component* is a composable container for one or more WebAssembly modules that have a predefined interface;
+- *WebAssembly Interface Types (WIT) language* allows defining contracts between components;
+- *Canonical ABI* is an ABI for types defined by WIT and used by component interfaces in the Component Model.
+
+Preliminary support for WIT has been implemented in
+[the `wit-tool` subcommand](https://github.com/swiftwasm/WasmKit/blob/0.0.3/Sources/WITTool/WITTool.swift) of the WasmKit
+CLI. Users of this tool can generate `.wit` files from Swift declarations, and vice versa: Swift bindings from `.wit`
+files.
+
+## Goals
+
+As of March 2024 all patches necessary for basic Wasm and WASI support have been merged to the Swift toolchain and
+core libraries. Based on this, we propose a high-level roadmap for WebAssembly support and adoption in the Swift
+ecosystem:
+
+1. Ensure that Swift toolchain and core libraries have a regularly running test suite for supported Wasm and WASI
+triples.
+
+2. Allow Swift developers to easily install and build with a Swift SDK for WASI. This requires an implementation
+of corresponding build scripts and CI jobs to generate and publish such SDK. Some parts of the Swift toolchain and core
+libraries need a Swift SDK for running tests for WASI, so this will benefit the previous point in stabilizing support
+for this platform.
+
+3. Make it easier to evaluate and adopt Wasm with increased API coverage for this platform in the Swift core libraries. As a
+virtualized embeddable platform, not all system APIs are always available or easy to port to WASI. For example,
+multi-threading, file system access, and localization need special support in Wasm runtimes and a certain amount of
+consideration from a developer adopting these APIs.
+
+4. Improve support for cross-compilation in Swift and SwiftPM. We can simplify versioning, installation, and overall
+management of Swift SDKs for cross-compilation in general, which is beneficial not only for WebAssembly, but for all
+platforms.
+
+5. Continue work on Wasm Component Model support in Swift as the Component Model proposal is stabilized. Ensure
+that future versions of WASI are available to Swift developers targeting Wasm. A more ambitious long-term goal to
+consider is making interoperability with Wasm components as smooth as C and C++ interop already is for Swift. With
+a formal specification for Canonical ABI progressing, this goal will become more achievable with time.
+
+### Proposed Language Features
+
+In our work on Wasm support in Swift we experimented with a few function attributes that could be considered
+as pitches and eventually Swift Evolution proposals, if the community is interested in their wider adoption.
+These attributes allow easier interoperation between Swift code and other Wasm modules linked with it by a Wasm
+runtime.
+
+* [`@_extern(wasm)` attribute](https://github.com/apple/swift/pull/69107) that corresponds to Clang's
+[`__attribute__((import_name("declaration_name")))`](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AttributeReference.html#export-name)
+and [`__attribute__((import_module("module_name")))`](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AttributeReference.html#import-module).
+This indicates that function's implementation is not provided together with its declaration in Swift and is
+available externally, imported by a Wasm runtime during the linking phase. The declaration is added to current Wasm
+module's imports section. Without `@_extern(wasm)` developers need to rely on C interop to create a declaration in a C
+header using the Clang version of attributes.
+
+* [`@_expose(wasm)` attribute](https://github.com/apple/swift/pull/68524) that corresponds to Clang's
+[`__attribute__((export_name("name")))`](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AttributeReference.html#export-name), which
+is the counterpart of `@_extern(wasm)` working in the opposite direction. This explicitly makes a Swift declaration
+available outside of the current module, added to its exports section under a given name. Again, the lack of
+this attribute in Swift requires use of C headers as a workaround.