Your First Luau Code

Part of the Introduction To Luau section of Coddy's Lua journey — lesson 3 of 73.

Time to write your first Luau code! The new ingredient on top of the Lua you know is the type annotation: a colon and a type name after the variable name.

local variableName: type = value

For example, a variable that should only ever hold text:

local message: string = "Hello, World!"

The : string part tells the type checker that message must contain string values. Try to assign a number to it later and the checker reports an error while you're still editing.

Luau also gives you a nicer way to build output: string interpolation. A string written with backticks can embed any expression inside curly braces:

local name: string = "Coddy"
print(`Hello, {name}!`)        -- Hello, Coddy!
print(`2 + 3 is {2 + 3}`)      -- 2 + 3 is 5

Compare that with chaining .. everywhere — interpolation keeps the text readable while the {braces} do the work of concatenation.

Challenge

Easy

Create a variable named language with an explicit type annotation of string and assign it the value "Luau".

Then print the message Hello, Luau! using string interpolation — a backtick string that embeds {language}.

Try it yourself

-- Write code here
-- 1) declare language: string = "Luau"
-- 2) print the greeting with a backtick string: `Hello, {language}!`

Test yourself

This lesson includes a short quiz. Start the lesson to answer it and track your progress.

All lessons in Introduction To Luau

1Getting Started with Luau

What Is Luau?Why Use Luau?Your First Luau CodeType Checking & Error Modes Recap: Introduction to Luau

4Working with Functions

Typing Params & Return Values Typing Anonymous Functions Functions Returning Nothing Optional Parameters Default Parameter Values Variadic Functions Defining Function Types Recap: Typed Functions

7Project: Typed Task Manager

Project: The Task Shape Function to Add a Task

Function to Change Task Status

Function: List Tasks by Status

Function: Print Task Summary

Putting It All Together

10Project: Generic Inventory

Project: Inventory Item Function: Add Items

Function: Find Item By ID

Specific Inventory Types

Function: Get Item Details