loading.md

Loading other taskfiles

You can load other taskfiles using load, which takes a taskfile module path and loads it. They are loaded such as to the main taskfile, there is no distinction between them, and it can access the subtasks just as well as its own.

Placement

Trying to use a task project.taskfile will look for a module alfons.tasks.project.taskfile. We implemented our own path search function that uses package.path, so it should load them identically to how require does. We needed to implement this function since taskfiles are loaded using the content string, and require would pre-load it.

As such, you can place your tasks in a local directory alfons/tasks/, or anywhere on your Lua path. You can also create LuaRocks rockspecs that supply their own taskfiles in that module path.

Loading

You should always (eheheh) load your taskfiles in the always task.

function always()
  load "fetch"
end

function default()
  print(tasks.fetch("https://example.com"))
end

tasks:
  always:  => load "fetch"
  default: => print tasks.fetch "https://example.com"

Scope

Your tasks will automatically be available from all other taskfiles that have been loaded and the main one.

Rather than writing a linear stream of code here to display what I mean, I decided to just use a graph. These are all loaded taskfiles.

The main taskfile is able to access all of its children's tasks. a is not only able to access the main tasks and tasks from d and e, but also from every other taskfile that has been loaded.

This does not hold true for the always task, where it will depend on loading order, but since the rest of the tasks are called only once all taskfiles have been loaded, tasks that are not always can access any other task.