How does straight.el deal with recipes from melpa?

[eppolito]

I recently tried to (straight-use-package 'dirvish) and was surprised to get an error that the package does not exist. I found the recipe on melpa and it seems fine, but I get an error that the recipe is malformed (using emacs -Q -l ~/minimal-straight-setup-from-docs.el).

I'm wondering what's going on here? I noticed that the recipe for dirvish is a bit more complicated than others I've seen (e.g. counsel), as it involves a wildcard.

PS. I did figure it out in the end, using a modified version of the recipe on melpa:
(straight-use-package '(dirvish :type git :repo "alexluigit/dirvish" :host github))

[progfolio]

I recently tried to (straight-use-package 'dirvish) and was surprised to get an error that the package does not exist.

What was the error? Please always include the error's text in future reports.

Everything seems to be working on my end. Perhaps your MELPA recipe repository needed to be updated? We have the straight-pull-recipe-repositories command if that was the case.

I did figure it out in the end, using a modified version of the recipe on melpa

The modified recipe you've provided will not copy over the files in dirvish's "extensions" directory on its own. However, the default value of straight-allow-recipe-inheritance is t, so your recipe is likely inheriting from the MELPA recipe.
Note the difference in the following test cases, where I explicitly disable inheritance for the recipe you've provided:

Yodel Report (2022-08-05 14:54:36):

(yodel
  :user-dir "melpa-recipe"
  :packages*
  dirvish
  :formatter yodel-format-as-github-markdown
  :post*
  (let ((default-directory (straight--build-dir "dirvish")))
    (message "dirvish build: %s " (straight--process-output "bash" "-c" "ls *.el"))))

STDOUT:

Loading /tmp/melpa-recipe/straight-bootstrap-snippet.el (source)...
Bootstrapping straight.el...
Bootstrapping straight.el...done
Looking for gnu-elpa-mirror recipe → Cloning melpa...
Looking for gnu-elpa-mirror recipe → Cloning melpa...done
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning gnu-elpa-mirror...
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning gnu-elpa-mirror...done
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning el-get...
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning el-get...done
Looking for straight recipe → Cloning emacsmirror-mirror...
Looking for straight recipe → Cloning emacsmirror-mirror...done
Building straight...
Building straight...done
Cloning dirvish...
Cloning dirvish...done
Building dirvish...
Building dirvish → Cloning transient...
Building dirvish → Cloning transient...done
Building dirvish → Building transient...
Building dirvish → Building transient → Cloning compat...
Building dirvish → Building transient → Cloning compat...done
Building dirvish → Building transient → Building compat...
Building dirvish → Building transient → Building compat...done
Building dirvish → Building transient...
Building dirvish → Building transient...done
Building dirvish...
Building dirvish...done

dirvish build:
dirvish-autoloads.el
dirvish-collapse.el
dirvish.el
dirvish-emerge.el
dirvish-extras.el
dirvish-fd.el
dirvish-history.el
dirvish-icons.el
dirvish-layout.el
dirvish-ls.el
dirvish-media.el
dirvish-menu.el
dirvish-narrow.el
dirvish-peek.el
dirvish-quick-access.el
dirvish-side.el
dirvish-subtree.el
dirvish-vc.el
dirvish-yank.el

Environment

• emacs version: GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.34, cairo version 1.17.6)
  of 2022-08-02
• system type: gnu/linux

Packages

Name	Branch	Commit	Date	Source
dirvish	main	alexluigit/dirvish@8f1b38d	2022-08-05	melpa
transient	master	magit/transient@389d2bf	2022-08-03	melpa
compat	master	emacs-straight/compat@2a9cf8b	2022-07-30	gnu-elpa-mirror

Yodel Report (2022-08-05 14:54:41):

(yodel
  :user-dir "modified-recipe"
  :packages* '(dirvish :type git :repo "alexluigit/dirvish" :host github :inherit nil)
  :formatter yodel-format-as-github-markdown
  :post*
  (let ((default-directory (straight--build-dir "dirvish")))
    (message "dirvish build: %s " (straight--process-output "bash" "-c" "ls *.el"))))

STDOUT:

Loading /tmp/modified-recipe/straight-bootstrap-snippet.el (source)...
Bootstrapping straight.el...
Bootstrapping straight.el...done
Looking for gnu-elpa-mirror recipe → Cloning melpa...
Looking for gnu-elpa-mirror recipe → Cloning melpa...done
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning gnu-elpa-mirror...
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning gnu-elpa-mirror...done
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning el-get...
Looking for emacsmirror-mirror recipe → Cloning el-get...done
Looking for straight recipe → Cloning emacsmirror-mirror...
Looking for straight recipe → Cloning emacsmirror-mirror...done
Building straight...
Building straight...done
Cloning dirvish...
Cloning dirvish...done
Building dirvish...
Building dirvish → Cloning transient...
Building dirvish → Cloning transient...done
Building dirvish → Building transient...
Building dirvish → Building transient → Cloning compat...
Building dirvish → Building transient → Cloning compat...done
Building dirvish → Building transient → Building compat...
Building dirvish → Building transient → Building compat...done
Building dirvish → Building transient...
Building dirvish → Building transient...done
Building dirvish...
Building dirvish...done

dirvish build:
dirvish-autoloads.el
dirvish.el

Environment

• emacs version: GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.34, cairo version 1.17.6)
  of 2022-08-02
• system type: gnu/linux

Packages

Name	Branch	Commit	Date	Source
dirvish	main	alexluigit/dirvish@8f1b38d	2022-08-05	nil
transient	master	magit/transient@389d2bf	2022-08-03	melpa
compat	master	emacs-straight/compat@2a9cf8b	2022-07-30	gnu-elpa-mirror