Defining a function during plugin loading - timing appears random

[gsinclair]

Maybe what I am doing is misguided, and feel free to tell me, but I am very curious how to solve this problem. Please also tell me if there is a more appropriate way to achieve what I want.

Background: I like to use which-key to set keymaps for (some of) my plugins. An example looks like this.

{
    'folke/zen-mode.nvim',
    opts = { ... },
    init = function()
      require('which-key').register({
        d = {
          z = { '<cmd>ZenMode<CR>', 'Zen mode' },
        }
      }, { prefix = '<leader>' })
    end
 }

This leads to boilerplate code in several specs, so I tried to improve it as follows:

{
    'folke/zen-mode.nvim',
    opts = { ... },
    init = function()
      quickwhichkeyregister {
        d = {
          z = { '<cmd>ZenMode<CR>', 'Zen mode' },
        }
      }
    end
 }

OK, so I need to define the quickwhichkeyregister function. Where do I do that? Well, along with which-key, of course.

{
    "folke/which-key.nvim",
    lazy = false,
    priority = 1001,
    init = function()
      -- Define this function for convenient use by other plugin configs.
      quickwhichkeyregister = function(maptable)
        require('which-key').register(maptable, { prefix = '<leader>' })
      end
    end
}

Notice I have set a very high priority on which-key because I need it to be loaded more or less first.

quickwhichkeyregister is a global variable, so it is now available for other specs to use. And this is true; it works.

Some of the time.

The order of loading appears to be unpredictable, because sometimes when I open neovim I get an error (that the function I am trying to call is nil), and other times I don't.

So:

• What am I not understanding (or doing correctly) such that priority=1001 is not causing the init code to be run before the init code of other plugin specs?
• Is there an alternative, more idiomatic way to achieve what I am trying to do?

Thank you :)