Modbrew

A declarative mod installer for PC games. You write a modbrew.yaml describing what to download and where to put it — Modbrew handles the rest.

🍺 How it works

Modbrew reads a modbrew.yaml file (the brewfile) authored by a modlist maintainer. It downloads each mod, extracts it, copies files to the right locations, and sets up a Mod Organizer 2 profile — all in one click.

Users never touch the YAML. Maintainers write it once; everyone brews from it.

📋 Requirements

• Mod Organizer 2 installed and launched at least once
• Modbrew placed in a .Modbrew/ subfolder inside the MO2 directory
• A data/modbrew.yaml brewfile alongside the installer

🚀 Getting started

1. Create a .Modbrew/ folder inside your MO2 directory (next to ModOrganizer.exe) and place Modbrew.exe and the accompanying data/, locales/, and resources/ folders inside it.
2. Run Modbrew.exe.
3. Click Brew.

To reinstall everything from scratch, tick Full brew before clicking Brew.

📝 Writing a brewfile

The brewfile is data/modbrew.yaml. It is human-readable, Git-friendly, and maintained by the modlist author.

profileName: "My Modlist"
shortcutName: "My Game — Modded"

mods:
  - id: "mod-config-menu"
    name: "Mod Configuration Menu"
    url: "https://www.moddb.com/..."
    hash: "abc123"          # optional SHA-256, validated on download
    recipe:
      - "gamedata"          # copy the gamedata/ folder from the archive

patches:
  - id: "my-patch"
    name: "Compatibility Patch"
    url: "https://github.com/..."
    recipe:
      - "bin"               # patches extract directly to the game root
      - "db"

separators:
  - id: "frameworks-sep"
    name: "Frameworks"      # creates a visual separator in MO2

🔑 Entry fields

Field	Required	Description
id	✓	Unique identifier used for progress tracking and hash storage
name	✓	Display name shown in the installer UI
url	✓	Direct download URL or ModDB addon page URL
hash	—	Expected SHA-256 of the archive. Modbrew warns on mismatch and can update it automatically.
recipe	—	List of paths inside the extracted archive to copy to the destination

📦 Recipe syntax

Each recipe entry is a path relative to the extracted archive root.

recipe:
  - "gamedata"                  # copy the gamedata/ folder as-is
  - "MyMod-main/gamedata"       # copy a nested folder
  - "config/settings.ltx -> gamedata/config/settings.ltx"  # explicit destination
  - "bin/engine.exe -> bin/"    # copy a file into a folder

The -> operator maps a source path to a custom destination. Without it, the entry is copied to the mod folder root.

⚙️ User configuration

user_config.yaml (created next to the installer on first run) controls personal preferences:

language: en-US
logLevel: INFO
logRetentionCount: 5
archiveCleanupStrategy: KEEP_ALL   # KEEP_ALL | KEEP_LATEST_ONLY | DELETE_ALL

🗂️ Directory layout

ModOrganizer.exe          ← MO2 lives here
.Modbrew/
├── Modbrew.exe
├── data/
│   ├── modbrew.yaml      ← the brewfile
│   └── assets/
│       ├── icon.ico
│       └── splash.png
├── locales/
├── resources/
├── logs/
└── user_config.yaml

📄 License

Modbrew is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 — free to use and share with attribution, but not for commercial purposes or redistribution of modified versions.