inspect

name	inspect
description	Inspect the AD pipeline IR for a Julia function at each Mooncake compilation stage.

Inspect

Inspect IR transformations in Mooncake's AD pipeline for a given function.

Setup

using Mooncake, Mooncake.SkillUtils

Gathering user intent

Ask the user:

1. Function and arguments — e.g. sin, 1.0 or a custom function
2. Mode — reverse (default) or forward
3. What to view — all stages, a specific stage, a diff between two stages, or world age info

Do not assume — ask the user to pick.

Pipeline stages

Reverse mode (default)

Stage	Symbol	Description
Raw IR	:raw	optimised, type-inferred SSAIR from Julia's compiler
Normalised	:normalized	after Mooncake's normalisation passes
CFG blocks	:cfg_blocks	Vector{CFGBlock} representation with stable IDs
Forward IR	:fwd_ir	generated forward-pass IR
Reverse IR	:rvs_ir	generated pullback IR
Optimised Forward	:optimized_fwd	forward pass after optimisation
Optimised Reverse	:optimized_rvs	pullback after optimisation

Forward mode

Stage	Symbol	Description
Raw IR	:raw	optimised, type-inferred SSAIR from Julia's compiler
Normalised	:normalized	after Mooncake's normalisation passes
CFG blocks	:cfg_blocks	inspection-only — forward mode does not use the CFGBlock representation internally
Dual IR	:dual_ir	generated dual-number IR
Optimised	:optimized	after optimisation passes

Commands

# Full inspection
ins = inspect_ir(f, args...; mode=:reverse)  # or mode=:forward

# View stages
show_ir(ins)                          # all stages
show_stage(ins, :raw)                 # one stage

# Diffs between stages
show_diff(ins; from=:raw, to=:normalized)
show_all_diffs(ins)

# World age debugging
show_world_info(ins)

# Write everything to files
write_ir(ins, "/tmp/ir_output")

# Shorthand helpers
ins = inspect_fwd(f, args...)         # forward mode
ins = inspect_rvs(f, args...)         # reverse mode
ins = quick_inspect(f, args...)       # inspect + display immediately

# Options
inspect_ir(f, args...;
    mode       = :reverse,
    optimize   = true,
    do_inline  = true,
    debug_mode = false,
)

Presenting results

• Run commands via Bash and present IR in fenced code blocks.
• When showing diffs, explain what changed and why the transformation matters.
• If errors occur, check that Mooncake is loaded and the function signature is valid.

Limitations

Inspects Mooncake's internal AD pipeline only. For allocation, world-age, or compiler-boundary debugging, see docs/src/developer_documentation/advanced_debugging.md.