LuaRocks Scraper

Scrape LuaRocks — the official package manager and repository for Lua modules. Search for rocks by keyword or fetch full details for specific modules. Extract names, descriptions, authors, versions, licenses, homepages, download counts, and labels.

What You Can Scrape

• Module metadata — name, description, author, version, license
• Download statistics — total download count per module
• Links — homepage and source repository URLs
• Labels — community-assigned category labels
• Versions — latest stable version string

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	select	searchRocks (default) or getByName
searchQuery	string	Free-text search query (e.g. http, json, redis)
rockNames	array	For getByName: rock names like ["luasocket"] or ["lunarmodules/luasocket"]
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of rocks to return (1–500, default 50)

Output

Each record contains:

Field	Description
rockName	Module name slug
description	Module description or summary
version	Latest stable version string
author	Uploader/author username
license	License identifier (e.g. MIT, Apache-2.0)
homepage	Official homepage URL
repositoryUrl	Source repository URL (GitHub, GitLab, etc.)
labels	Community-assigned label strings
downloadCount	Total download count across all versions
sourceUrl	Direct LuaRocks module page URL
recordType	Always "rock"
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 timestamp of scrape

Sample Output

{
  "rockName": "http",
  "description": "HTTP library for Lua",
  "version": "0.4-0",
  "author": "daurnimator",
  "license": "MIT",
  "homepage": "https://daurnimator.github.io/lua-http/",
  "repositoryUrl": "https://github.com/daurnimator/lua-http",
  "labels": ["network", "http", "websockets"],
  "downloadCount": 1235113,
  "sourceUrl": "https://luarocks.org/modules/daurnimator/http",
  "recordType": "rock",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-30T12:00:00+00:00"
}

Use Cases

• Lua ecosystem research — discover available modules by category or functionality
• Dependency analysis — find popular libraries for HTTP, JSON, databases, etc.
• Package monitoring — track download trends and popular modules
• Open source intelligence — find Lua modules and their maintainers

FAQ

Do I need API keys or authentication? No. LuaRocks is a public website with no authentication required.

How many rocks can I scrape? Up to 500 per run. LuaRocks has thousands of modules — use searchQuery to narrow results.

Can I fetch a specific rock? Yes — use mode=getByName with rockNames like ["luasocket"] or ["daurnimator/http"].

What is the author/name format? Either just the rock name (e.g. luasocket) or author/name (e.g. luarocks/luarocks). The author prefix ensures you get the exact module when multiple authors publish rocks with the same name.

How often is data refreshed? Each run fetches live data from LuaRocks at the time of execution.