How to use dependencies correctly?

[VisionaryAppDev]

I am quite confuse with the dependencies property.

From readme, I suppose to add the main package first and then add the package that depend on the main package as a dependencies.

{
    "hrsh7th/nvim-cmp",
    event = "InsertEnter",
    dependencies = {
      "hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lsp",
      "hrsh7th/cmp-buffer",
    },
    config = function()
    end,
  },

As from the readme, I need to change the word requires to dependencies. So, from the below example, it's like I need to add dependent package first, and then add the main package or package that is required by the dependent package after.

• https://github.com/rcarriga/nvim-dap-ui

{ 
    "rcarriga/nvim-dap-ui", 
    dependencies = {"mfussenegger/nvim-dap"} 
}

• https://github.com/folke/todo-comments.nvim

{
  "folke/todo-comments.nvim",
  dependencies = "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
  config = function()
    dependencies("todo-comments").setup {}
  end
}

It's quite confusing for me. So, please kindly explain how should I config it correctly.

[folke]

First of all, lua dependencies don't need to be explicitly set. So if a package uses lua modules from another plugin, you don't need to add those dependencies. That's being done automatically.

Cases where you do need to specify dependencies is where you need to make sure that certain plugin (the dependencies) are loaded before the parent plugin should load.

So in the case of cmp, you want to make sure that cmp-buffer etc is also loaded when cmp loads.

The other two examples, don't need those dependencies expleicitely set, but it also doesn't hurt.