The rationale is explained in this README [1], but it basically boils down to transitive dependencies and the amount of checks the compiler has to do. From link

The rationale is explained in this README [1], but it basically boils down to transitive dependencies and the amount of checks the compiler has to do. From linked README: "If we `#include <string>` for the LLVM libcxx header containing the `std::string` class, then the compiler needs to consider 4,800 `#include` lines. Most of them are edges it'll discount since they've already been included but the sum total of files that get included is 694!" [1]: https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan/blob/master/ctl/README.md https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan/blob/master/ctl/README....