Using magit-add-section-hook in spacemacs startup

Question

I am attempting to use magit-add-section-hook in dotspacemacs/user-init.

(defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
  ;; Magit pull submodules.  Don't know why this fails.
  (magit-add-section-hook 'magit-status-sections-hook 'magit-insert-modules-overview 'append t)
  )

This results in the following error while loading:

(Spacemacs) Error in dotspacemacs/user-config: Symbol’s function definition is void: magit-add-section-hook AND the magit-add-section-hook is not defined in emacs. Other magit operations appear to function properly.

When I remove the (magit-add-section-hook ...) from the dotspacemacs/user-initand restart the function magit-add-section-hook loads normally and can be used with the above expression.

*** Version Info***:

• Emacs: GNU Emacs 27.1 (build 1, x86)64-mingw32) of 2020-11-19
• Spacemacs: 0.300.0@27.1
• Magit: 20211011.1135 [>=3.3.0], Git 2.30.1, Emacs 27.1, windows-nt

Answer 1

You can't call a function that hasn't been defined, and that function won't be defined until the magit-section.el library has been loaded.

For Magit you're better to deal with the main magit.el library though. It will (indirectly) load magit-section.el along with the other core libraries, and in your particular case you're dealing with things which are defined in more than one of those libraries.

You can (require 'magit) to load it forcibly, but I would do this:

(with-eval-after-load "magit"
  (magit-add-section-hook ...))