Generate an incoming C binding

Incoming FFI starts from an explicit ownership manifest. The generator never infers lifetime from a pointer or symbol name.

Minimal scalar manifest

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "package": "fixture",
  "header": "fixture.h",
  "threadPolicy": "threadSafe",
  "functions": [
    {
      "name": "Value",
      "symbol": "fixture_value",
      "parameters": [],
      "result": "int32",
      "convention": "direct"
    }
  ]
}

The corresponding C header contract is:

#include <stdint.h>

int32_t fixture_value(void);

Generate the private package:

keika ffi generate \
  --manifest ./scalar-ffi.json \
  -o ./internal/fixture

The command validates the complete JSON document and writes internal/fixture/generated_ffi.go. For this manifest, the generated Go API contains:

func Value() int32

The documentation check runs this exact generation command and verifies the generated source is gofmt-formatted.

Integrate it safely

The header must be visible to cgo and the native symbol must be linked for a full application build. Keep generated bindings under internal/; expose a small application wrapper instead of leaking raw boundary details.

For strings, byte buffers, arrays, handles, callbacks, and status/out functions, declare ownership and release behavior in the manifest. See C ABI and FFI for lifetime and thread-policy rules.