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=1.3.1

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;

Recommended app layout¶

For larger applications, keep the repository root simple and move most code into src/:

my-app/
├── main.nov
├── libraries.conf
├── lib/
│   └── std/
└── src/
    ├── app.nov
    └── features/

The usual pattern is:

root main.nov stays small
main.nov imports files from src/
feature code lives in src/ subfolders

Updating projects safely¶

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

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

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

Library layout¶

Application layout and library layout are slightly different.

For libraries, keep using the dedicated guidance in Authoring libraries. That page covers the public main.nov loader, VERSION, docs.md, tests, and platform folders.