Announcing the SLua Open Beta: Modern Scripting Comes to Second Life
https://community.secondlife.com/news/featured-news/announcing-the-slua-open-beta-modern-scripting-comes-to-second-life-r11237/
Today marks an exciting milestone for Second Life creators: SLua, our modern scripting language built on Luau (Roblox's Lua variant), is now available in open beta on the production grid!
What is SLua?
SLua brings modern programming language features to Second Life while maintaining full compatibility with your existing LSL knowledge. Built on Lua: a language used by millions of developers worldwide. SLua offers faster execution, ~50% less memory consumption than LSL/Mono, and powerful new capabilities that make complex scripts easier to write and maintain.
Key Features and Improvements
Faster execution compared to LSL/Mono
~50% less memory usage
Modern language features
Data structures and tables
Dynamic event subscription
Multiple event handlers in a single script
Coroutines
Multiple timers
New Creation Documentation Portal
Want to contribute to documentation efforts? Visit https://create.secondlife.com/script/ and share your knowledge with the community.
Getting Started
For Creators and Scripters
Download the SLua Project Viewer
Get it at releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer.html
Install the Official VSCode Plugin (Recommended)
Our new official scripting plugin provides syntax highlighting, preprocessing, Lua require inclusion, error tracking, object chat and debug output tracking in the IDE, automatic language updates, and more. Download it from GitHub. It will be available on the VSCode Extension Marketplace soon.
Visit SLua Beta Regions
SLua scripts can be created, edited, and tested on regions designated as "SLua Beta" regions.
Just want to visit?
If you’re curious to experience SLua-powered content, you can use your regular viewer: no changes needed.
Resources and Community
Documentation: Comprehensive scripting documentation is now available at our new work-in-progress creator portal: create.secondlife.com
Community: Join us on Discord at discord.com/invite/secondlifeofficial in the #scripting-lua channel
Editing: Linden Lab has an official open source VSCode extension that can be found at https://github.com/secondlife/sl-vscode-plugin
Official Scripting Extension for VSCode
For those that prefer editing with an external editor we also have an extension for VSCode which you may download here: https://github.com/secondlife/sl-vscode-plugin/releases
Modern Language Features
Tables: SLua's most powerful data structure works as both arrays (like LSL lists) and dictionaries/maps. No more managing parallel lists—you finally have native key-value storage in Second Life. Dynamic Event Handling: Register multiple event handlers at runtime with the new LLEvents system. No more state machinery—just clean, focused callbacks:
Multiple Timers: Need more than one timer? LLTimers lets you create multiple independent timers with different intervals—all with built-in lag protection:
Coroutines: Write elegant asynchronous code for complex multi-step operations without callback hell. Native JSON Support: Built-in JSON encoding and decoding with lljson.encode() and lljson.decode() makes web integration straightforward. Optional Type Safety: Add type annotations where you need them for better error catching, or skip them for rapid prototyping.
Developer-Friendly Syntax
If you know Lua, Python, or JavaScript, SLua will feel familiar, and if you're coming from LSL, you'll appreciate the cleaner syntax:
Important Beta Caveats
This is a beta release, and we want to be clear about what that means:
https://community.secondlife.com/news/featured-news/announcing-the-slua-open-beta-modern-scripting-comes-to-second-life-r11237/
Today marks an exciting milestone for Second Life creators: SLua, our modern scripting language built on Luau (Roblox's Lua variant), is now available in open beta on the production grid!
What is SLua?
SLua brings modern programming language features to Second Life while maintaining full compatibility with your existing LSL knowledge. Built on Lua: a language used by millions of developers worldwide. SLua offers faster execution, ~50% less memory consumption than LSL/Mono, and powerful new capabilities that make complex scripts easier to write and maintain.
Key Features and Improvements
Faster execution compared to LSL/Mono
~50% less memory usage
Modern language features
Data structures and tables
Dynamic event subscription
Multiple event handlers in a single script
Coroutines
Multiple timers
New Creation Documentation Portal
Want to contribute to documentation efforts? Visit https://create.secondlife.com/script/ and share your knowledge with the community.
Getting Started
For Creators and Scripters
Download the SLua Project Viewer
Get it at releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer.html
Install the Official VSCode Plugin (Recommended)
Our new official scripting plugin provides syntax highlighting, preprocessing, Lua require inclusion, error tracking, object chat and debug output tracking in the IDE, automatic language updates, and more. Download it from GitHub. It will be available on the VSCode Extension Marketplace soon.
Visit SLua Beta Regions
SLua scripts can be created, edited, and tested on regions designated as "SLua Beta" regions.
Just want to visit?
If you’re curious to experience SLua-powered content, you can use your regular viewer: no changes needed.
Resources and Community
Documentation: Comprehensive scripting documentation is now available at our new work-in-progress creator portal: create.secondlife.com
Community: Join us on Discord at discord.com/invite/secondlifeofficial in the #scripting-lua channel
Editing: Linden Lab has an official open source VSCode extension that can be found at https://github.com/secondlife/sl-vscode-plugin
Official Scripting Extension for VSCode
For those that prefer editing with an external editor we also have an extension for VSCode which you may download here: https://github.com/secondlife/sl-vscode-plugin/releases
Modern Language Features
Tables: SLua's most powerful data structure works as both arrays (like LSL lists) and dictionaries/maps. No more managing parallel lists—you finally have native key-value storage in Second Life. Dynamic Event Handling: Register multiple event handlers at runtime with the new LLEvents system. No more state machinery—just clean, focused callbacks:
Multiple Timers: Need more than one timer? LLTimers lets you create multiple independent timers with different intervals—all with built-in lag protection:
Coroutines: Write elegant asynchronous code for complex multi-step operations without callback hell. Native JSON Support: Built-in JSON encoding and decoding with lljson.encode() and lljson.decode() makes web integration straightforward. Optional Type Safety: Add type annotations where you need them for better error catching, or skip them for rapid prototyping.
Developer-Friendly Syntax
If you know Lua, Python, or JavaScript, SLua will feel familiar, and if you're coming from LSL, you'll appreciate the cleaner syntax:
Important Beta Caveats
This is a beta release, and we want to be clear about what that means:
⚠️ The API is subject to change. Content you create now may need updates as we refine the language based on your feedback. This is an active development beta—expect changes.
⚠️ SLua scripts will ONLY run in SLua Beta regions. They will not execute in standard regions. Your existing LSL scripts continue to work everywhere as always.
⚠️ SLua content on the Marketplace. To avoid unhappy customers, we advise waiting until SLua has launched grid wide before listing SLua content on the Marketplace.
What's Next?
As SLua stabilizes based on beta feedback, we'll expand availability and continue building out the creator portal with tutorials, examples, and migration guides. The VSCode extension will arrive on the official VSCode and Open VSX marketplaces soon, making setup even easier.
Join the Beta
Head to create.secondlife.com to explore the documentation, download the SLua project viewer, and start experimenting. We can't wait to see what you build. Welcome to the future of Second Life scripting.
Have questions? Found a bug? Join the conversation in #scripting-lua on our Discord.
⚠️ SLua scripts will ONLY run in SLua Beta regions. They will not execute in standard regions. Your existing LSL scripts continue to work everywhere as always.
⚠️ SLua content on the Marketplace. To avoid unhappy customers, we advise waiting until SLua has launched grid wide before listing SLua content on the Marketplace.
What's Next?
As SLua stabilizes based on beta feedback, we'll expand availability and continue building out the creator portal with tutorials, examples, and migration guides. The VSCode extension will arrive on the official VSCode and Open VSX marketplaces soon, making setup even easier.
Join the Beta
Head to create.secondlife.com to explore the documentation, download the SLua project viewer, and start experimenting. We can't wait to see what you build. Welcome to the future of Second Life scripting.
Have questions? Found a bug? Join the conversation in #scripting-lua on our Discord.