pkgs.callPackage vs pkgs.<lua>.pkgs.callPackage

  • Regular Lua modules (no pkgs dependencies): use pkgs.<lua>.pkgs.callPackage from pkgs/development/lua-modules/generated-packages.nix

  • Lua modules depending on pkgs packages: use pkgs/top-level/lua-packages.nix

    The callPackage inherited here is still callPackage (from pkgs), for these reasons:

    1. In pkgs/development/interpreters/lua-5/default.nix:

      luaPackagesFun = callPackage ../../../top-level/lua-packages.nix {
  lua = self;
};

      Here callPackage refers to pkgs.callPackage.

    2. luaPackagesFun is then passed to:

      makeScopeWithSplicing' {
  inherit otherSplices;
  f = lib.extends extensions luaPackagesFun;
}

    ⚠️ Caution: The makeScopeWithSplicing' used here comes from pkgs/top-level/splice.nix — it already includes pkgs.newScope and only accepts a single attrset {otherSplices, f, ...}.

    This is easy to confuse with lib/customisation.nix's makeScopeWithSplicing', which accepts two attr parameters.

    Therefore, Lua's makeScopeWithSplicing' call extends the original pkgs scope.