Getting Started

Scaffold a project

Start with the scaffolding CLI:

npx @gwigz/slua-create

This walks you through template selection, optional extras (JSX, vendored modules, StyLua, linting), and generates a ready-to-build project. It can also run non-interactively, e.g. npx @gwigz/slua-create my-project --yes, see --help for all flags.

Manual setup

If you prefer to set things up yourself, install the packages directly:

npm install --save-dev typescript typescript-to-lua @gwigz/slua-types @gwigz/slua-tstl-plugin

Then create a tsconfig.json in your project root:

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TypeScriptToLua/TypeScriptToLua/master/tsconfig-schema.json",
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ESNext",
    "module": "ESNext",
    "moduleResolution": "bundler",
    "strict": true,
    "moduleDetection": "force",
    "skipLibCheck": true,
    "lib": ["ESNext"],
    "types": ["@typescript-to-lua/language-extensions", "@gwigz/slua-types"],
    "outDir": "out"
  },
  "tstl": {
    "luaTarget": "Luau",
    "luaLibImport": "inline",
    "noImplicitSelf": true,
    "noImplicitGlobalVariables": true,
    "luaPlugins": [{ "name": "@gwigz/slua-tstl-plugin" }],
    "extension": "slua"
  }
}

See the TSTL configuration docs for all available options.

Editor setup (optional)

Map .slua to Lua highlighting in VS Code:

{
  "files.associations": {
    "*.slua": "lua"
  }
}

Tell GitHub to highlight .slua files as Lua:

*.slua linguist-language=Lua

You may also like the Second Life SLua/LSL extension for additional language support.

Compile

npx tstl

To rebuild automatically whenever a file changes, pass --watch:

npx tstl --watch

Scaffolded projects wire this up as the dev script: npm run dev, pnpm dev, or bun run dev.

Deploy

To get the compiled output in-world without copy-pasting it into the viewer, push it in-world over the viewer's external editor connection:

bun run build && bunx @gwigz/slua-viewer-client push dist/main.slua

Compile errors come back pointing at your TypeScript source. See @gwigz/slua-viewer-client.