Use of TEXMFVAR by LuaMetaTeX

[Bruno Voisin]

The following came out while testing the ConTeXt setup in MacTeX 2024. I'm no ConTeXt user myself, so I may be mixing things up.

If I got things right, "context --luatex --generate" initializes the LuaTeX-based ConTeXt MkIV, and "context --generate" the LuaMetaTeX-based ConTeXt LMTX.

Doing this on the Mac with MacTeX 2024, the former creates files in TEXMFVAR = ~/Library/texlive/2024/texmf-var as it should, for example

mkiv lua stats  > used cache path: readable+writable: '/Users/brunovoisin/Library/texlive/2024/texmf-var/luatex-cache/context/a86c089b384a3076dc514ba966a1fac9'

while the latter creates files inside ~/.texlive2024/texmf-var, for example

resolvers       | caching | category 'files', cachename 'selfautoparent:texmf-config' saved in '/Users/brunovoisin/.texlive2024/texmf-var/luametatex-cache/context/1b4da46d1f340757f9984eae810b1464/trees/9d8576a18c59fc65c42b8c6d0dc5211a.lua'

Is this the intended design?

I checked with install-tl, there is no customization there to set the cache path for luametatex:

<D> set directories:
  TEXDIR (the main TeX directory):
    /usr/local/texlive/2024
  TEXMFLOCAL (directory for site-wide local files):
    /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local
  TEXMFSYSVAR (directory for variable and automatically generated data):
    /usr/local/texlive/2024/texmf-var
  TEXMFSYSCONFIG (directory for local config):
    /usr/local/texlive/2024/texmf-config
  TEXMFVAR (personal directory for variable and automatically generated data):
    ~/Library/texlive/2024/texmf-var
  TEXMFCONFIG (personal directory for local config):
    ~/Library/texlive/2024/texmf-config
  TEXMFHOME (directory for user-specific files):
    ~/Library/texmf

I looked at /usr/local/texlive/2024/texmfcnf.lua, but all it contains path-wise is

      TEXMFHOME = "~/Library/texmf",
      TEXMFVAR = "~/Library/texlive/2024/texmf-var",
      TEXMFCONFIG = "~/Library/texlive/2024/texmf-config",

Bruno Voisin