Why having setup key set implies opt = true?

[oblitum]

Hi. I have all my plugins correctly lazy loading by precisely making correct usage of setup, config, opt, requires, after and the undocumented wants. Everything is working as expected except for one thing. I forgot to replace some configs for setups because some plugins require some configuration variables to be set before they're loaded. So I did it, but this at the same time implies they all change to opt = true. I don't understand this change in defaults due to setting a setup function, what's the rationale for this?? Plugins are opt = false by default, now if they have a setup, they become opt = true by default, it doesn't make sense to me.

[oblitum]

Most of the plugins that got moved to opt/ are filetype plugins. Despite they now having turned into opt plugins, they are correctly loading when opening a file of the given filetype, I got a bit confused here as I assumed opt plugins to load only when setting some trigger key, like keys, cmd, ft, etc. As they changed to opt, but I didn't set any key but setup, dunno why they are correctly lazy loading at all.

Nevermind. This is even weirder... despite they being moved to opt/ due to setting setup, they are still being sourced!

So they got moved to opt/ but they're not opt because they're still being sourced.

[nanotee]

My guess would be that since packer can't control when start packages are loaded, setup makes a package opt to ensure that your settings are loaded before said package

[oblitum]

That makes total sense now nanotee.... so what I just described above makes sense. The plugins both become opt but are loaded regardless. It's kinda grey area how to label them.

[wbthomason]

As nanotee notes, the reason for this is because we have to ensure that the setup key runs before the plugin is loaded, but native packages only allows this control for opt plugins. So, we make all plugins with a setup key opt, but then - if they have no other reason to be opt (e.g. no lazy-loading) - we packadd them immediately after their setup keys to ensure that they're eagerly loaded. Setting something like opt = true implies that the user has an explicit need for the plugin to not be eagerly loaded, and so we don't auto load them in that case.

It is worth noting that an opt plugin is not necessarily a lazy-loaded plugin (as in this case).

I hope this helps, and sorry for the confusion!

[oblitum]

Thanks for the official clarification. This is exactly as we ended up deducing.

[wbthomason]

Yep - @nanotee had it covered, I just wanted to give a bit more context for why things are like that.

[oblitum]

If nanotee is correct, then solely having a setup implies a opt = true, while still being implicitly auto lazily loaded in the end. I wonder whether setting opt = true explicitly will make it actually "manual lazy".

[oblitum]

Ugh, indeed, this is exactly what happens. I think I know how it works now.