Writing scripts

A script is one Lua 5.4 file Lynx runs inside the game process, in its own sandbox next to the menu. All you need is a text editor and basic Lua.

The API is modelled on gamesense. There is no lynx table: the base globals are always present, plus the game’s own namespace. Read Getting started first, then Events.

The sandbox

• Standard libraries base, table, string, math and utf8 are opened. io, os, debug, package and coroutine are not.
• Removed from every script: print, warn, collectgarbage, dofile, load, loadfile, require, rawget, rawset, rawequal, rawlen, setmetatable, getmetatable, string.dump.
• Each script has its own _ENV; two scripts never see each other’s variables. Reads fall through to the standard globals, so string.format and math.floor work.
• A source file over 1 MiB is refused. At most sixteen scripts load at once.
• Only text source compiles; bytecode is never accepted.

Capabilities

Some globals are gated. A gated global that was not granted is nil. A marketplace bundle lists the groups it needs in manifest.json under capabilities; a loose local script on a dev build is granted every group. Gated groups: http, websocket, input, reflect, and on cocos builds ffi/objc/cocos.