NoGraphicsAPI Reimagines Vulkan Without Descriptor Sets or Pipeline Layouts

NoGraphicsAPI is an experimental, open Vulkan 1.4 backend implementing Sebastian Aaltonen's "No Graphics API" concept. Much of the conventional graphics API surface disappears: buffer objects, descriptor sets, and pipeline layouts are replaced by 64-bit GPU pointers, application-owned texture/sampler descriptor heaps, and a single shared root structure pushed per draw or dispatch via vkCmdPushDataEXT.

The design relies on newer Vulkan extensions — VK_EXT_descriptor_heap, VK_KHR_device_address_commands, VK_KHR_shader_untyped_pointers, VK_KHR_unified_image_layouts, and VK_EXT_mesh_shader — to move descriptor handling, binding, and synchronization closer to how modern GPUs actually operate. Barriers describe hazards rather than per-resource transition lists, and ordinary textures stay in a single unified layout.

Three example applications (triangle, cube, and a deferred renderer combining compute and mesh-shader passes) exercise the Vulkan backend end to end. A Metal 4 mapping is documented but not yet implemented. For engineers tracking bindless and address-based rendering models, the project offers a concrete, buildable reference for how far a graphics API can be stripped down while keeping shader and CPU code in sync through a shared C++/Slang type layer.