Today, Microsoft open sourced the key components of the Chakra JavaScript engine that powers Microsoft Edge. The ChakraCore repository is available today on GitHub and provides a fully supported and open source JavaScript engine, with the same characteristics as Microsoft Edge’s Chakra engine, to embed in projects, innovate on top of and contribute back to.
Chakra offers best-in-class JavaScript execution with the broadest set of ES2015 feature coverage and dependable performance, reliability, and scalability. The Edge team expects ChakraCore to be broadly used, ranging from cloud-based services to the Internet of Things and beyond.
The Edge team is also publishing a roadmap for ChakraCore on the GitHub repository. With today’s release, you can build ChakraCore on Windows 7 SP1 or above with Visual Studio 2013 or 2015 with C++ support installed. In the future, Microsoft has committed to bringing it to other platforms, starting with Linux, and will keep the roadmap updated with details and status updates.
“It’s an exciting day for the JavaScript community and everyone who’s been involved in this effort so far,” wrote Microsoft’s Gaurav Seth, Principal Program Manager for Chakra. “We believe that developing in the open will allow the team to collaborate even more deeply with more developers around the world, resulting in better products for everyone.”
For more on this news, check out the Windows blog. You can connect with the team on Twitter at @ChakraCore or visit ChakraCore’s GitHub repo and drop them a note by opening an issue.