Lingua Franca Tutorial
Modeling and Programming Time-Sensitive Systems Using Lingua Franca Coordination Language
Hands-on tutorial (2:00 – 4:00 PM CEST, 2 hours)
🚀 Tutorial Quick Links
Start here to set up your environment and get the hands-on lab materials.
Install LF
Set up the Lingua Franca toolchain, VS Code extension, and CLI (this tutorial uses LF v0.13.0).
Installation InstructionsHands-on Labs
Create your own copy of the tutorial template repository with eight short labs in C and Python.
Open GitHub LabsReady-to-run VMs
Download preconfigured VirtualBox and UTM images for Windows and Mac users.
Download Virtual MachinesAbstract
This hands-on, interactive tutorial introduces Lingua Franca (LF), a polyglot coordination language for building deterministic, time-sensitive systems. You write ordinary C or Python code inside reactors, and LF coordinates when that code runs, locally or across multiple processes, with a well-defined model of time. It is held during the FDL 2026 Summer School in Rome, Italy, part of the Forum on Specification & Design Languages (FDL) 2026.
The tutorial is built around eight short labs, each centered on a small program that you compile, run, and extend. Every lab exists in both C and Python, teaching the same LF concepts with the same exercises—pick the language you are more comfortable with and stay on that path. The tutorial is intended for researchers, engineers, and graduate students with programming experience interested in the design of time-sensitive systems with deterministic concurrency.
🎯 Target Audience
FDL 2026 Summer School participants including Ph.D. students, academic researchers, and industry engineers. No prior experience with LF is required—basic proficiency in C and/or Python is recommended.
💡 Motivation & Relevance
Time-sensitive systems, such as cyber-physical systems and embedded control software, often involve multiple concurrent components interacting under real-time constraints. Ensuring deterministic behavior and coordinated timing across these components is a notorious challenge with conventional programming approaches (threads, pub/sub, actor frameworks, etc.).
Lingua Franca is a polyglot coordination language designed to address this challenge by offering a framework for building concurrent, time-sensitive systems that behave deterministically and predictably. An LF program defines interactions between reactive components called reactors and emphasizes deterministic coordination with explicit handling of timing.
Key Benefits
- Deterministic Concurrency: Race-free execution on multiple cores or devices without special synchronization code
- Explicit Timing Semantics: Specify and maintain precise temporal behavior without ad-hoc timing code
- Polyglot Support: Reactor logic can be written in C, Python, C++, Rust, or TypeScript
- Distributed Execution: Built-in support for federated execution across networked devices
📋 Tutorial Schedule
Schedule: September 8, 2026, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (2 hours)
Introduction to Lingua Franca
2:00 PM – 2:15 PMIntroduction to the challenges of building time-sensitive systems and motivation for Lingua Franca. Overview of the reactor-oriented programming model and key language concepts (reactors, ports, timers, logical time, deterministic concurrency).
Led by: Instructor
Setup and Hello World
2:15 PM – 2:25 PMVerify your Lingua Franca toolchain with the readiness checklist, choose your language path (C or Python), and compile and run your first reactor program.
Led by: Instructor & Teaching Assistant
Hands-on Labs
2:25 PM – 3:55 PMWork through the eight short labs of the tutorial repository, each built around a small program you compile, run, and extend. The labs progress from reactors, ports, and timers, through logical time, determinism, physical actions, and modal reactors, to deadlines and federated execution.
Led by: Instructor & Teaching Assistant
Wrap-Up and Q&A
3:55 PM – 4:00 PMSummary of key takeaways, pointers to advanced LF capabilities, project roadmap, and community involvement opportunities.
Led by: Instructor
🧪 The Eight Labs
Each lab is built around a small program you compile, run, and extend. The links in the tutorial repository point at both the C and Python versions of every lab. Total guided time is about 80-100 minutes, leaving room in a two-hour session for setup and questions.
| Lab | Theme | Main concepts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ready, set, react | Toolchain, reactors, timers, reactions, diagrams |
| 2 | Building a reactor pipeline | Ports, connections, parameters, state |
| 3 | Tags, delays, and lag | Logical vs. physical time, microsteps, actions |
| 4 | Predictable ordering | Determinism, reaction order, causality loops |
| 5 | Reacting to the outside world | Physical actions, threads, preambles |
| 6 | Changing behavior with modes | Modal reactors, reset and history transitions |
| 7 | Useful work under a time budget | Deadlines, handlers, anytime computation |
| 8 | One model, multiple processes | Federated execution, the RTI |
🎓 What You'll Learn
Concepts
- Reactor-oriented programming model
- Reactors, ports, connections, and state
- Tags, logical time, and physical time
- Deterministic reaction ordering and causality
- Modal reactors, deadlines, and federations
Hands-on Skills
- Writing, compiling, and running LF programs with C or Python
- Bringing external events into a program with physical actions
- Enforcing timing requirements with deadlines
- Turning a multi-reactor program into a federation
- Using VS Code with the LF extension and diagrams
💻 Technical Requirements & Setup
Participants should bring a laptop for the hands-on sessions. Lingua Franca's toolchain supports Linux, macOS, and Windows (via WSL). This tutorial uses Lingua Franca v0.13.0.
Installation guide
Step-by-step setup for the toolchain, VS Code extension, and CLI is in the Lingua Franca installation documentation and in the tutorial repository's setup section.
Highlights:
- Java 17 or higher is required for the compiler and tooling.
- Windows: use WSL with Ubuntu and install all LF components inside Linux (not MSYS/Git Bash).
- VS Code: install the Lingua Franca extension from the Marketplace (
lf-lang.vscode-lingua-franca). - CLI: one-line install with
curl -Ls https://install.lf-lang.org | bash -s cli.
Setup Options
- Native Installation (recommended): One-line install script or VS Code extension installation, following the installation guide above.
- Pre-configured VMs: Download the tutorial virtual machines with LF v0.13.0, VS Code, the LF extension, and both target toolchains preinstalled. We provide one VirtualBox VM for Windows users on Intel/AMD platforms and one UTM VM for macOS users on ARM architecture.
Dependencies
- Java 17+ JDK
- C path: a C compiler (
clangorgcc) and CMake - Python path: Python 3.10 or newer, plus a C compiler and CMake
- VS Code with the Lingua Franca extension
Hands-on Programming Materials
The hands-on session follows the eight labs in the lf-tutorial-fdl26 template repository on GitHub. Before the tutorial, create your own private copy from the template (Use this template > Create a new repository), clone it, and open the folder in VS Code. The same labs exist in both C and Python.
👥 Instructor
Hokeun Kim
Arizona State University, USA
Assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence (SCAI) at Arizona State University. Ph.D. in EECS from UC Berkeley (2017) with a focus on distributed cyber-physical systems and IoT security. Research interests include cyber-physical systems, distributed systems, real-time systems, computer security, and computer architecture. Recipient of ACM/IEEE Best Paper Award at CPSWeek, IEEE Micro Top Picks Honorable Mention, and 1st Place in ESSC at ESWEEK.
🧑🏫 Teaching Assistant
📚 Materials & Resources
This webpage serves as the central hub for all tutorial materials. Participants can expect to find:
- Setup instructions and prerequisites
- Hands-on lab instructions and starter code
- Links to the LF documentation and example projects
Materials will be updated as we approach the tutorial date. Check back regularly for the latest resources.
Community Support
Join the Lingua Franca Zulip community for Q&A before and after the tutorial. This connects you with an active open-source community spanning multiple institutions for continued learning and support.
Related Resources
Get started with Lingua Franca and learn more about the summer school.