Nox and libraries

Nox is what turns Novus from "a compiler you can run once" into a reusable ecosystem.

Initialise a project

nox init my-app

That creates the project skeleton and pulls std.

Install a registry package

nox pull window
nox pull file_io

Nox downloads packages into lib/<name>/.

What libraries.conf is for

This file is the package manifest for the project.

Modern example:

installed=std,file_io

pkg:std:source=registry
pkg:std:url=https://github.com/MJDaws0n/novus-std
pkg:std:version=1.3.0

Older projects may include:

• branch=...
• commit=...
• version ranges

You will still see those in some repositories.

Importing installed packages

Once a package is present in lib/, import it from code:

import lib/file_io fio;
import lib/window/main window;

Updating projects safely

If a project starts throwing strange errors after a package ecosystem change, check:

1. the libraries.conf version
2. the actual code inside lib/<package>/
3. whether the project has a stale vendored package copy

That specific problem appears often when older projects keep package directories checked into git.

What a package should contain

At minimum:

my-lib/
├── main.nov
├── VERSION
├── libraries.conf
└── docs.md

If the library is platform-specific, a structured layout is cleaner:

platforms/
├── darwin/
├── linux/
└── windows/