Kore is the "core" part of the K framework.
In short, we need a formal semantics of K. In K, users can define formal syntax and semantics of programming languages as K definitions, and automatically obtain parsers, interpreters, compilers, and various verification tools for their languages. Therefore K is a language-independent framework.
Thanks to years of research in matching logic and reachability logic, we know that all K does can be nicely formalized as logic reasoning in matching logic. To give K a formal semantics, we only need to formally specify the underlying matching logic theories with which K does reasoning. In practice, these underlying theories are complex and often infinite, and it is tricky to specify infinite theories without a carefully designed formal specification language. And Kore is such a language.
The /docs directory contains a comprehensive document Semantics of K
that describes the mathematical foundation of Kore, and a BNF grammar
that defines the syntax of Kore language.
The /src directory contains a parser for the Kore language implemented
in scala.
The /src/test directory contains a collection of Kore definition examples.