When you start, your language is just for you so the question is are syntax highlighting and auto-formatting table stakes for you? If yes, then I'd suggest you

When you start, your language is just for you so the question is are syntax highlighting and auto-formatting table stakes for you? If yes, then I'd suggest you learn how to write a tree-sitter grammar and integrate with your editor of choice. This will also get you up and running with a basic AST rather quickly and you can decide whether or not you want to write your own parser or just use the tree-sitter generated ast for your compiler.