ForgeKit

📖 Full documentation: ForgeKit wiki page

Dependency-free dev-tooling library for people writing BepInEx 5 mods for Outward: Definitive Edition. It doesn't add anything a player sees on its own — it's the plumbing several other mods (CompanionKit, SpawnKit, and more) build on, and other modders are welcome to build on it too.

Requires: BepInEx 5 (Outward's Mono branch — see Compatibility below). No SideLoader, no Harmony, no other mod dependency.

What's in it

Piece	What it gives you
CommandChannel + CommandRegistry	A file-driven dev command loop: write a verb into BepInEx/config/<yourmod>_cmd.txt, it runs on the next poll (unscaled time, so it still fires while the game is paused). Unknown verb or help lists everything registered. It runs on unscaled time, so it still fires while the game is paused.
SelfTestHarness	The [SELFTEST] BEGIN / PASS: / FAIL: / SKIP: / DONE pass= fail= skip= report shape — wire up Check(name, condition) / CheckIf(canRun, …) calls and get one consistent, greppable self-test report (skips are unrunnable-here, not failures).
Notify	An on-screen info toast for the player, mirrored to the log.
Lifecycle	WhenPlayerReady — a coroutine that waits past the game's void/staging coordinates before your mod starts touching the player, plus IsSanePosition for the same check inline.
TableLoader<T> / EmbeddedRes	Embedded-default-plus-config-override text/texture tables: ship a sane default inside your DLL, let players override it by dropping a file in BepInEx/config/.

Installing (for players)

Drop the ForgeKit folder into BepInEx/plugins/. It has no effect by itself — install it because another mod you're using declares it as a dependency.

Using it (for modders)

<!-- your .csproj -->
<ProjectReference Include="path\to\ForgeKit\ForgeKit.csproj" Private="false" />

[BepInPlugin(GUID, NAME, VERSION)]
[BepInDependency(ForgeKit.Plugin.GUID)]
public class Plugin : BaseUnityPlugin
{
    private CommandRegistry _commands;
    private CommandChannel _channel;

    void Awake()
    {
        _commands = new CommandRegistry(Logger);
        _commands.Register("hello", "hello — logs a greeting.", args => Logger.LogMessage("Hi!"));
        _channel = new CommandChannel("YourMod_cmd.txt", Logger, _commands);
    }

    void Update() => _channel.Tick();
}

Private="false" matters — it stops MSBuild from copying a second ForgeKit.dll into your mod's own output folder. The kit ships from its own BepInEx/plugins/ForgeKit/ folder; your mod just references it and declares the dependency so BepInEx loads it first.

Configuration

ForgeKit has no configuration file of its own — it provides the command channel and config-table helpers that consuming mods use. The dev command loop reads a per-consumer file at BepInEx/config/<Mod>_cmd.txt (e.g. BepInEx/config/YourMod_cmd.txt), and TableLoader<T> lets a consumer ship an embedded default table overridable by a file the player drops in BepInEx/config/. Any settings live in the consuming mod's own cobalt.<name>.cfg, not here.

Compatibility

Outward must be on its Mono Steam beta branch, not the default IL2CPP build — like every BepInEx 5 mod for this game. If your game runs but no BepInEx mods load and there's no crash log, this is almost always why (Properties → Betas → select mono in Steam).

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE in the repository root. You may use, modify, and redistribute this kit (including in commercial mods) provided you keep the copyright/license notice; see the license text for the full terms.