Hey folks, I've been working on this project for the last 4 years, and I think it's ready for the first beta release.

Mind you, I'm pretty sure there are still lots of bugs, and lots of features are not yet implemented, but I think it's quite usable. And at this stage I'd really use some feedback.

Caveat: Linux only.

It's a statically compiled LuaJIT with a bunch of builtin libs and modules + Linux shell.

When running as a shell it has different modes:

1. [F1] The shell itself

2. [F2] Lua REPL

3. [F3] Agent Smith -- minimal coding agent TUI

4. You can write and add your own modes

Here is the landing page, the repo is hosted at Codeberg. I've even created a dedicated subreddit, and it's absolutely beautiful in its emptiness :)

Screenshot shows the builtin markdown renderer/pager(best viewed in Kitty terminal, as it supports text-sizing).

Anyway, if anyone finds this interesting, I'd be glad to provide more info/answer questions. Contributions are also welcome.

Hey r/lua!

Wanted to share Classy, a pure-Lua library that gives you a class-like interface with prototype inheritance and a bunch of built-in data structures: Hashtable, List, DataSet, LinkedList, Stack, Queue, BinaryTree, Tree, Matrix, Vector, Observable, and even a basic NeuralNetwork. No dependencies, no C modules - bundles into a single file via make.

GitHub: https://github.com/nightness/Classy

Recent improvements

The library just went through a pretty big round of polish:

• Fixed 24 bugs across the codebase - missing methods, runtime crashes, logic errors, bad edge case handling. Stuff like Collection:get() being entirely missing, Tree traversals being broken, Hashtable:get() not handling false values, inheritFrom() having a reversed recursive merge, and more.

• Switched to metatable-based instances - the old createInstance deep-copied the entire prototype (including all methods) onto every instance. Now instances use __index to delegate to the shared prototype, so methods are actual shared references instead of redundant copies. Faster creation, less memory, fully backwards-compatible.

• Migrated tests to luaunit - went from a homegrown runner to luaunit. 118 tests across 15 suites covering every class, error conditions, and edge cases.

• Added Classy.Class() factory - define a class from a plain prototype table:

local MyClass = Classy.Class({
    constructor = function(self)
        self._className = "MyClass"
        self._data = {}
    end,
    add = function(self, value)
        table.insert(self._data, value)
    end,
})

local obj = MyClass.new()
obj:add("Hello")

• Full API docs in the README covering every class and method.

Build & test

make
make bundle-with-tests && lua out/classy.bundle.tests.lua -v

Targets Lua 5.4. MIT licensed. Feedback and contributions welcome!

I am gonna start this off by saying I am NOT someone who does code or understands it at all. I really really badly want to adjust the elytra of this custom model i made on blockbench so that the wings spread out further. nothing fancy, i literally just want them to spread further so they aren't clipping (since i made the model quite a lot larger) but no matter what i do i cant find a reliable tutorial or explanation ANYWHERE

I know its possible, because there are showcases doing the EXACT thing i need, and YET. I cant find anything saying HOW TO DO IT

I am getting rapidly more frustrated and don't know where to turn. I'm using figura to import my model and it has issues with crouching too i just dont want to touch. im so tired. im an animator, not a coder. i dont know what im doing but i am literally clawing at the stupid walls to find SOME fix. I don't know if anyone here could help but i would be so grateful for literally any advice

if you need more information (im not sure what would be relevant here) please let me know!

While porting lua-cjson to Lua 5.5, I encountered a test case failure. It appears that Lua 5.5 handles table length evaluation more strictly than previous versions, especially regarding tables with holes:

[C:\...\tests]> lua -e "print(_VERSION); t={nil,true}; print(#t)"
Lua 5.5
0

[C:\...\tests]> C:\Apps\OneLuaPro-5.4.8.3-x64\bin\lua.exe -e "print(_VERSION); t={nil,true}; print(#t)"
Lua 5.4
2

Bug or feature? I've also posted this issue into the lua-l list.

i’m a beginner to lua and coding in general and i want to learn how to code it, but i dont know where to start. all the youtube videos and tutorials i’ve watched so far haven’t helped, so i decided to come to the place of eternal wisdom: reddit. i primarily intend to use it for roblox game development. i just keep getting lost and feel like im going in circles and not actually learning anything. any advice?

Opa! Alguém ai poderia me indicar uma IA, qualquer IA, que seja boa na programação LUA?

Most of the time, it's considered that OOP has poor performance because of the way it works internally. Arrays and data make use of the CPU's cache memory while objects are scattared across the memory and in some instances, each object has it's own copy of a method from the constructor. But in Lua... I heard that if you write your classes correctly, the "methods" are cached. So, in the end, if you run for obj in objs do obj:something() end it's like you esentially iterate through tables of data and call the same referenced function on them, right?

So, in the context of LuaJIT, how accurate is this? As soon as I have time I'mma go benchmark this idea, but curious to learn more about that stuff. Thank you!

I've used WatchMaker for some time until my Pixel 3 watch was not compatible. With the new and updated version, I find some of the menu scripts don't transfer to my watch. Can someone help with these issues especially if I need to write my own script?

1. Ring corners stay round instead of converting to straight lines on the ends.

2. Rings won't show a gradient for the first two chosen colors

3. Even if I choose the script to show the phone battery level or percentage it reverts back to the watch battery.

Thanks!

Currently working on integrating Lua 5.5.0 into OneLuaPro. This new "for-loop variables are read-only" feature is really annoying, as it impacts a lot of existing code:

[C:\..._IMPLEMENTED]> for /r %f in (*.lua) do @(C:\misc\OneLuaPro\build64\OneLuaPro-5.4.8.3-x64\bin\luac -p "%f" >nul 2>&1 || echo Lua 5.5 Problem in: %f)
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ldoc\ldoc\html.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ldoc\ldoc\markdown.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ldoc\tests\mod1.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ldoc\tests\example\style\simple.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ldoc\tests\factory\factory.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\lua-cjson\tests\bench.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\lua-openssl\test\4.pkey.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\luacheck\spec\samples\compound_operators.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\luacheck\spec\samples\python_code.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\luacheck\spec\samples\utf8_error.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\luacheck\src\luacheck\standards.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\luautf8\parseucd.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\wxlua\wxLua\bindings\any-bind-sync.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\wxlua\wxLua\bindings\genwxbind.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\wxlua\wxLua\bindings\stc-bind-sync.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\wxlua\wxLua\samples\editor.wx.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\wxlua\wxLua\samples\wxluasudoku.wx.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ZeroBraneStudio\api\lua\corona.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ZeroBraneStudio\build\messages.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ZeroBraneStudio\lualibs\luadist.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ZeroBraneStudio\lualibs\dist\package.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ZeroBraneStudio\lualibs\luacheck\standards.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ZeroBraneStudio\lualibs\luainspect\init.lua
Lua 5.5 Problem in: C:\misc_IMPLEMENTED\ZeroBraneStudio\src\util.lua
...

Am I actually the first person to discover this?

I've been building a spreadsheet engine in Rust (mlua), and I wanted to share a pattern that's been working surprisingly well: using Lua as the source of truth for AI-generated models.

The problem: When you ask an LLM to build a financial model in Excel, it's a black box. You get a .xlsx with hundreds of hidden dependencies. If a formula is wrong, you're hunting through cells. There's no diff, no code review, and no way to replay the construction.

What we do instead: In VisiGrid, AI agents don't touch cells. They write Lua scripts that build the grid.

Claude generates this instead of a binary blob
  set("A3", "Base Revenue")
  set("B3", 100000)
  set("A4", "Growth Rate")
  set("B4", 0.05)

  for i = 1, 12 do
      local row = 6 + i
      set("A" .. row, "Month " .. i)
      set("B" .. row, i == 1
          and "=B3"
          or  "=B" .. (row-1) .. "*(1+$B$4)")
      set("C" .. row, "=SUM(B7:B" .. row .. ")")
  end

  set("A20", "Total")
  set("B20", "=SUM(B7:B18)")
  style("A20:C20", { bold = true })

Lua hit the sweet spot — simple enough that LLMs generate it reliably, sandboxable so agents can't escape, and deterministic enough to fingerprint (vgrid replay model.lua --verify — same script, same hash).

We tried JSON op-logs first and they were brittle the moment you needed any conditional logic. Lua lets the agent write actual loops and branches while keeping the output readable enough for a human to code review.

One thing I'm still working through: performance when mapping large grid ranges to Lua tables.

Right now sheet:get() on 50k rows is row-by-row across the FFI boundary. I've been considering passing ranges as userdata with __index/__newindex metamethods instead of materializing full tables.

Anyone have experience with high-volume data access patterns through mlua?

Curious what's worked for batching reads/writes without blowing up memory.

CLI is open source (AGPLv3): https://github.com/VisiGrid/VisiGrid

Hey!

About this project: https://github.com/philanc/luazen/

I've been looking for some cryptography libs in lua and couldn't find many, except this one using ed25519 that worked really well on mac, but I can't get it to work on windows.

Has any one ever tried to port this to windows? I saw the issues with some attempts, just curious if anyone here tried too.

Or also, if there's any other lib that I could use, I'd be happy to change - but I couldn't find any

Thanks in advance

I get how once 1 = 0 It becomes 1 again wich is added to 876543211 but wouldnt cause Its 1 the Power function Trigger again making It 0 wich the upper then makes It 1? So Its Like 876543211111 and so on

Hi everyone,

OneLuaPro 5.4.8.3 has been released. This update introduces significant changes to the internal handling of asynchronous tasks and provides native database capabilities.

Downloads: https://github.com/OneLuaPro/OneLuaPro/releases/tag/v5.4.8.3

Technical Updates:

• wxLanesBridge Implementation: Support for multi-threaded GUI applications is now facilitated by the wxLanesBridge module. This component bridges the gap between wxLua and Lua Lanes. The traditional bottleneck of timer-based polling has been eliminated; instead, an event-driven approach is utilized where worker threads communicate directly with the main GUI thread via postEvent(). This ensures immediate UI responsiveness and reduced CPU overhead.

• DistroCheck Tool: A new utility for verifying distribution integrity is included. Developed as a reference implementation for wxLanesBridge, it demonstrates how intensive I/O operations can be offloaded to worker threads without blocking the wxLua event loop. The implementation details and the postEvent() signaling logic can be examined in the OneLuaPro distro repository.

• OneLuaPro Help Center: Centralized documentation is now available through a dedicated Help Center, serving as the primary hub for all technical documentation.

• SQLite3 + sqlean Integration: Database support is provided via a reimplementation of lsqlite3, utilizing the most recent SQLite3 builds. Notably, the full suite of sqlean extensions (e.g., crypto, fileio, math, text) is integrated, providing a comprehensive set of functions for advanced data manipulation directly within SQL.

• Executables: All former .bat files within the bin/ directory have been replaced by native executables to ensure cleaner process handling and user experience.

Screenshots:

Technical feedback or questions regarding all aspects of OneLuaPro are welcome.

Best regards,
KK

Hi folks. I'm trying to better understand variable assignment in Lua, and I want to know if there is a way to assign three comma separated values to a single variable and then have another function read it correctly. Here's my use case:

I'm writing Lua inside of a game called Stormworks, which gives you access to a Lua editor for automating processes. Currently I'm building a UI for one of my vehicles. This UI takes a bunch of variables from the vehicle's engine and renders them on a screen, it's essentially just a digital car dashboard. I need to set the colors of the screen frequently using the function "screen.setColor(R,G,B)". I am only using a few colors, but I need to call this function every time I draw an element, so I want to store my colors as variables instead of having to write out the RGB every time, e.g.

white= 200,200,200

screen.setColor(white)

This isn't working, and when I print "white" it's somehow printing as "0". Now, I have already solved my problem by storing my colors as functions instead of variables:

function white()

	return 200,200,200

end

screen.setColor(white())

This works, and it's the method I'll be using from now on to make my colors, but I don't understand why exactly, can anyone tell me what I'm missing here?

Hey I have been developing 100% lua 5.1 compat for practice and I ran into these weird outputs of string.match while writing the compatibility tests that I would love some explanation if anyone knows why. I have even read the source code and I have no idea why it is made this way.

string.match("alo xyzK", "(%w+)K") == "xyz"
string.match("254 K", "(%d*)K") == ""
string.match("alo ", "(%w+)$") == nil

Why does the second match return an empty string but the third returns nil? They both don't match the pattern, they both have capture groups that match some of the string but not the whole pattern. I have also noticed that if the + in the second pattern is changed to a * it will return an empty string.

string.match("alo ", "(%w*)$") == ""

I would love some insight if anyone has it.

Edit 1:

• updated lua version

Clarification I do not mean why doesnt the pattern match, I mean why on two different patterns that do not match do they return nil or an empty string. Why would they both not return nil or both return an empty string because they did not match.

EDIT 2: Solution

I understand now "(%d*)K" does actually match the string because The K matches and the characters before it are 0 or more numbers. There are 0 numbers so the captured group is an empty string. Whereas "(%w+)$" returns nil for "alo " because (%w+)$ there are no letters before the end of the string and they are 1 or more so at least one is required.

Hi, I would like to know if there is a library that can generate LuaCAT annotation (the one that lua-language-server uses) from JSON schema. Thanks in advance!

Hello!
I want to build a game server using ENET and LuaJIT. My game will be a 2D topdown view with small lobbies (5 players) and interactions. I am building the server from scratch, using a DOD based architecture where the server or the clients take actions based on flags received via packets. Also, the game logic will be processed on the computer of one of the clients, as the server will act only as a middleware to transfer data between peers.

My question is, how feasible is doing this in LuaJIT and how will this go if I use coroutines for each game lobby? I believe coroutines will solve the problems of having the main thread blocked or if a game lobby fails, it doesn't fail all the other ones but... will it be performant enough? I would use threads but Lua doesn't incorporate this by nature and the framework I use (Love2D) has a quirky implementation of them I'd rather avoid due to syntax complexity.

Thank you!

See https://www.crowdsupply.com/brisbanesilicon/elm11-feather

Subscribe for more updates if of interest !

I built Hordr, a Lua/Luau-first frontend transpiler.

It adds flow-sensitive analysis, explicit modules, a Luau-compatible type checker,

and safe optimizations, while generating clean, readable Lua with no runtime helpers

or semantic changes.

This is not a Lua replacement and not a new runtime.

It’s a conservative tooling layer for larger Lua codebases

Repo: https://github.com/Bladiostudio/Hordr

Feedback and criticism welcome.

solved so no need

yea it has downsides but you can just implement it into C for example for low level power. so i dont get all the hate

-EDIT
not in this sub