GHC-Specter: A Plugin for Live Inspection of GHC Internal States

Explore a 26-minute conference talk from ACM SIGPLAN's Haskell Implementors' Workshop 2023 introducing ghc-specter, an innovative tool for inspecting and visualizing internal states of the GHC compilation pipeline. Learn how this GHC driver plugin, easily invoked through command-line flags, collects relevant information directly from GHC compilation and transmits it to a live visualizer daemon. Discover how Haskell developers can leverage ghc-specter to identify time-consuming compilation steps, investigate problematic Template Haskell code, and gain deeper insights into the compilation process without relying solely on built-in GHC logging or modifying GHC source code. Understand the tool's capabilities for pausing and intervening in the GHC process mid-compilation, allowing for interactive inspection of internal states and compilation processes.

[HIW'23] ghc-specter: a GHC plugin that inspects the GHC state on live