QBE – Compiler Back End (opens in new tab)

There is a library conversion fork: https://github.com/sgraham/sqbe.

IMO when the intended usage is AOT with an external assembler, which is another subprocess, text-based IO is actually the more natural approach.

The backend is only ~1300 lines. QBE is a super simple project which is why adding a backend to it worked so well. I just pointed Claude at the existing RISC-V backend for reference and it whipped up the MIPS one. It really does work, though there might be bugs I didn't run into. I compiled an Amiga MOD player, written in my language, to the N64 and it worked fine, if that gives you an idea of how stress tested it was. IIRC it runs about 5x slower than GCC-generated code.

https://gist.github.com/SuperDisk/1aa50263a773143c82a39d4771...

They absolutely can for simpler cases like this, especially recent GPT 5.x models are amazing at such lower-level compiler work.

> Can you contribute it? I don't see it listed as an official backend.

I don't think anyone wants AI generated contribution to QBE (neither do I).

As the other commenter said, I don't think contributing it would be that useful, since QBE is a rather zen-garden project and I don't think the author would accept slop. Also he could just generate it with a prompt himself :P

It's certainly fun as a toy though!