Critical Patterns

Error Handling (REQUIRED)

// ✅ ALWAYS: Use error unions fn readFile(path: []const u8) ![]u8 { const file = try std.fs.cwd().openFile(path, .{}); defer file.close(); return try file.readToEndAlloc(allocator, max_size); }

// Usage with catch const content = readFile("config.txt") catch |err| { std.log.err("Failed: {}", .{err}); return err; };

Memory Management (REQUIRED)

// ✅ ALWAYS: Use allocators explicitly const allocator = std.heap.page_allocator;

var list = std.ArrayList(u8).init(allocator); defer list.deinit();

try list.append(42);

Comptime (REQUIRED)

// ✅ Use comptime for compile-time computation fn Vec(comptime T: type, comptime N: usize) type { return struct { data: [N]T,

    pub fn init() @This() {
        return .{ .data = undefined };
    }
};

}

const Vec3f = Vec(f32, 3);

Decision Tree

Need error handling? → Use error unions with try/catch Need cleanup? → Use defer Need compile-time? → Use comptime Need optional value? → Use ?T (optional type) Need C interop? → Use @cImport

Commands

zig build # Build project zig run src/main.zig # Build and run zig test src/main.zig # Run tests zig fmt src/ # Format code

Resources

• Best Practices: best-practices.md

• Comptime: comptime.md

• Memory: memory.md