Optional Dependencies & Features

lde supports optional dependencies that are only installed when a specific feature flag is enabled. This is useful for platform-specific dependencies or add-ons that not every user of your package needs.

Marking a dependency as optional

Add "optional": true to any dependency in your lde.json:

"dependencies": {
  "winapi": { "git": "https://github.com/example/winapi", "optional": true }
}

Optional dependencies are never installed unless a feature that includes them is active.

Defining features

Features are named groups of optional dependencies. You define them under the "features" key in lde.json, where each key is a feature name and the value is a list of dependency names to enable:

"dependencies": {
  "winapi": { "git": "https://github.com/example/winapi", "optional": true },
  "luaposix": { "luarocks": "luaposix", "optional": true }
},
"features": {
  "windows": ["winapi"],
  "linux": ["luaposix"],
  "macos": ["luaposix"]
}

Built-in OS features

lde automatically activates one of the following feature flags based on the current operating system:

This means you can gate dependencies by OS without any extra configuration — just name your feature "windows", "linux", or "macos" and lde will activate the right one automatically.