Sorry I have no idea how to properly reply to my initial message as I am not subscribed to the mailing list. Anyhow..
Never thought I would write this, but extending Automake is really easy! I'll write my solution here in case someone finds this with a search engine. Below is what I came up with (simplified version), simply adding new Lua files to nobase_dist_lua_DATA will automagically compile them using luac and your preferred luac flags. nobase_dist_lua_DATA = \ scripts/example_one.luac \ scripts/example_two.luac LUA_CC = luac LUA_CC_FLAGS = -s LUA_OBJECTS = $(nobase_dist_lua_DATA:.lua=.luac) all-local: lua-compile clean-local: lua-clean lua-compile: $(LUA_OBJECTS) lua-clean: rm scripts/*.luac lua.luac: $(LUA_CC) $(LUA_CC_FLAGS) $< -o $@