Packaging

Rootbeer ships as a single binary (rb) with an optional set of Lua standard library files. How those files are delivered depends on the distribution channel.

Embedded Stdlib (Default)

By default, the embedded-stdlib Cargo feature is enabled. This bakes every lua/rootbeer/*.lua module into the binary via include_str! at compile time. The resulting binary is fully self-contained — no extra files to install, no paths to configure.

cargo build --release
# target/release/rb is all you need

This is the recommended mode for Homebrew, Nix, and direct downloads.

Separate Stdlib

Some Linux distributions (Debian, Fedora, Arch, etc.) have packaging policies that require source files to remain on disk rather than embedded in binaries. Disable the default feature to get this behavior:

cargo build --release --no-default-features

In this mode, the binary reads rootbeer.* modules from disk at runtime. The path is set at compile time via the ROOTBEER_LUA_DIR environment variable (defaults to the repo's lua/ directory):

ROOTBEER_LUA_DIR=/usr/share/rootbeer/lua \
  cargo build --release --no-default-features

The expected directory layout at that path:

/usr/share/rootbeer/lua/
└── rootbeer/
    ├── brew.lua
    ├── core.lua
    ├── git.lua
    ├── host.lua
    ├── profile.lua
    ├── ssh.lua
    └── zsh.lua

Users can also override the path at runtime with --lua-dir:

rb --lua-dir /opt/rootbeer/lua apply

Quick Reference

Channel	Build command	Ships
Homebrew / Nix / direct	cargo build --release	Single binary
Distro packages	cargo build --release --no-default-features	Binary + lua/ tree
Development	cargo build	Binary reads lua/ from repo