Lua Coding Practices

Lua Coding Practices

Application skill for Lua style learning (from the archived awesome-guidelines style capsules). For Luau/Roblox or OpenResty-specific rules, after current project code and any project-local references, consult applicable stack capsules in skills/*-foundation.

Core Principle

Lua quality is local scope + explicit modules, return a table, require into locals, document the exported surface.

When to Use / NOT

• Lua 5.x libraries, Neovim/Redis/OpenResty scripts, embedded game logic (non-Luau).
• Setting up luacheck, LDoc, busted/luaunit in CI.

NOT when:

• Luau-typed Roblox code, use project Luau guide.
• Generated .lua stubs, validate generators.

Workflow

1. Layout, indent, spacing, blocks (lua-style-formatting-layout.md).
2. Modules, names, return M (lua-style-naming-modules.md).
3. Functions, local, guards, calls (lua-style-functions-scope.md).
4. Tables/docs, literals, LDoc (lua-style-tables-docs.md).
5. Verify, luacheck, LDoc (if applicable), tests on changed modules.

Red Flags

• Globals without explicit _G discipline
• module(..., package.seeall)
• Missing local on bindings
• Semicolons as statement separators
• local x = function() instead of local function
• Ambiguous omitted-paren string calls
• Broken x and y or z when y may be false
• debug library in production paths
• Deprecated 5.0 APIs
• Undocumented exported functions
• dot vs [] misuse on static keys
• No trailing comma in multiline tables
• Deep nesting without end comments
• table.insert for simple append only

Verification

• luacheck . (project .luacheckrc)
• LDoc build for documented modules
• busted/luaunit test run (project harness)
• Capsule checklist on return M module pattern

References

• awesome-guidelines/references/lua-style-learning-note.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/lua-style-formatting-layout.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/lua-style-naming-modules.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/lua-style-functions-scope.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/lua-style-tables-docs.md