the lua interpreter by itself is similar in scope to freestanding c. You can do anything, but you have to do everything. Lua doesn't come with much. Just some very basic file io (not even including listing files). Stuff that embeds lua is supposed to provide a runtime for lua programs to actually interact with.

> Lua doesn't come with much. Just some very basic file io (not even including listing files)

Don’t most people simply use the LuaFileSystem library for that? https://github.com/lunarmodules/luafilesystem

I think you (and the project) are using “runtime” when what you really mean environment.