Hearthkeeper

Version 0.5.0 — Phase 1 Complete

Hearthkeeper is an inventory, storage, and base-supply utility for Valheim built around the game's standard container, inventory, crafting, feeding, and processing systems.

Version 0.5.0 marks the completion of Hearthkeeper's first major development phase. This release brings together the storage, sorting, chest-rule, Restock, crafting, feeding, refueling, stack-size, visual-feedback, and compatibility work developed throughout the 0.1.x series into a single tested milestone build. Basic compatibility testing has also been performed with Equipment and Quick Slots 3.1.3. During testing, Hearthkeeper's storage and sorting features respected equipped, quick-slot, and custom-slot items, and Restock successfully refilled marked stacks in supported extra slots.

This testing covers normal Hearthkeeper use with the tested Equipment and Quick Slots build; unusual slot layouts, other inventory mods, or future updates to either mod may require additional compatibility work.

Highlights in 0.5.0

• Native Valheim-style inventory and chest controls with compact action buttons and hover tooltips.
• Store Matching, Store All, Sort Inventory, Sort This Chest, and Consolidate Chests.
• Per-chest Reserve, Crafting / Restock Supply, automatic-storage, and Livestock Feed rules.
• Personal Restock with remembered slots, automatic refill checks, and Equipment and Quick Slots 3.1.3 compatibility support.
• Crafting and building materials supplied from nearby eligible chests.
• Feed-enabled livestock chests with protection from automatic ground pickup.
• Automatic refueling for supported fires, torches, and processing devices.
• Configurable chest sizing with horizontal and vertical scrolling for larger inventories.
• Chest names displayed directly on supported chest surfaces with range, facing, and obstruction checks.
• Brief receiving-chest glow when Hearthkeeper automatically deposits items.
• Optional configurable stack sizes with compact K/M stack-count display.
• Consolidation that prefers the chest already holding the greatest quantity of each item.
• Improved diagnostics, transfer safety, reserve handling, and zero-stack cleanup.

What's Next

Phase 2 development is planned as the next major Hearthkeeper milestone. Future work will focus on expanding and refining the systems already established in Phase 1 rather than destabilizing the tested 0.5.0 foundation.

Features being explored may change during development and are not guaranteed until they are tested and included in a release.

A quick note about updates: When I push a new Hearthkeeper build, there may occasionally be a short period where the mod disappears from Thunderstore or r2modman while the update is being processed or reviewed. If that happens, don't panic — it should return once the update is cleared.

Support and bug reports: MaddCatter365's Discord.

Hearthkeeper is an original inventory, warehouse, and base-supply utility for Valheim. It works with Valheim's standard Container, Fireplace, and Smelter systems, including compatible pieces added by building mods.

Features

• Stores loaded ground drops in nearby chests that already contain the same item.
• Store Matching sends matching backpack items to nearby chests with the inventory open or closed. The currently open matching chest is supported and prioritized.
• Store All sends every eligible backpack item into the open chest while protecting the hotbar and equipped or special-slot gear.
• Consolidate Chests combines matching stock among nearby chests without touching player inventory.
• Sort Inventory and Sort This Chest provide deterministic internal sorting.
• An optional timed automatic cycle consolidates nearby chests and arranges their contents.
• Crafting and building can count and consume materials from nearby eligible chests.
• Each chest can reserve nothing, one item, one dynamic stack, or a custom quantity of every represented item type.
• An optional manual reserve lock also protects reserved quantities from ordinary transfers and Take All.
• Feed-enabled chests supply hungry tame livestock and wild tameable creatures through Valheim's normal feeding system.
• Configurable chest sizing starts at 7x4 and provides larger default tiers for later-game chests.
• Receiving chests briefly glow after Hearthkeeper deposits items into them.
• Automatic refueling supports player-built fires, hearths, torches, kilns, smelters, blast furnaces, windmills, spinning wheels, eitr refineries, and compatible standard-component devices.
• Optional global stack-size adjustment and per-item overrides are included but disabled by default.

Installation

Hearthkeeper requires BepInExPack Valheim. Install with a Thunderstore-compatible mod manager, or place Hearthkeeper.dll in:

BepInEx/plugins/Hearthkeeper/Hearthkeeper.dll

The configuration file is created at:

BepInEx/config/MaddCatter365.Hearthkeeper.cfg

All players in a multiplayer session should use the same Hearthkeeper version and configuration. Disable overlapping storage, craft-from-container, livestock-feeding, chest-sizing, automatic-refueling, and stack-size mods to prevent duplicate transfers or conflicting rules.

Controls

• F6 — Store Matching during normal gameplay or while inventory is open.
• F7 — Consolidate Chests while inventory is open.
• F8 — Sort Inventory while inventory is open.
• F9 — While aiming at a supported fire, torch, or processing device, exclude or re-include that individual device in automatic refueling.
• Store All — Button shown while a chest is open.

Hotkeys are suppressed while typing, using menus or the console, teleporting, dead, or in a cutscene. Every key can be rebound under 10 Hotkeys.

Storage and sorting

Store Matching deposits only into accepting chests that already represent that item type. The hotbar is protected when ProtectHotbar is enabled, and equipped gear is always protected. Equipment and Quick Slots 3.1.3 is supported as an optional integration; its equipment, quick, and custom cells are excluded from storage and personal sorting.

Consolidate Chests redistributes matching items among eligible chests. It does not empty the player's inventory. The optional automatic cycle under 05 Consolidation performs both warehouse consolidation and internal chest arrangement at a configurable interval. It waits while an inventory or chest interface is open.

Chest rules

• Reserve — Off, one item, one current dynamic stack, or a custom quantity.
• Manual reserve lock — Makes normal transfers and Take All respect the reserve.
• Accept automatic storage — Allows or blocks Store Matching, ground intake, and consolidation deposits. Store All remains a deliberate manual deposit.
• Crafting / Restock Supply — Allows crafting, building and personal Restock to use that chest. Feed forces this OFF; after Feed is turned off, explicitly re-enable supply if desired.
• Livestock feed — Allows the chest to supply appropriate hungry creatures.

Automated crafting, building, feeding, consolidation withdrawals, and refueling always respect reserved quantities. Reserves apply to the total amount of each item type in the chest, not to each occupied slot. Breaking a chest retains Valheim's normal item-drop behavior.

Chest sizes

Default player-built chest grids are:

• Wooden chest: 7x4 (28 slots)
• Personal chest: 7x5 (35 slots)
• Reinforced chest: 9x6 (54 slots)
• Black-metal and ashwood chests: 10x8 (80 slots)

Prefab-specific dimensions, minimums, and maximums are configurable under 08 Chest Sizes. Hearthkeeper records the largest dimensions applied to each networked chest and will not silently shrink it later. Chest-size changes require leaving and re-entering the world.

Crafting, building, and livestock

Crafting and building retain Valheim's ordinary station, recipe, DLC, ward, and placement checks; Hearthkeeper only extends available-material counts and consumption to accessible nearby chests. Crafting range is independently configurable up to 100 metres.

Feed-enabled chests support tame and wild tameable creatures that use Valheim's standard Tameable and MonsterAI food lists. Feeding continues the normal taming process and does not bypass hunger, calmness, or ownership rules.

Automatic refueling

Automatic refueling is disabled by default under 13 Automatic Refueling. Its categories are independent:

• FiresAndTorches supplies standard player-built Fireplace devices.
• ProcessingFuel supplies fuel to standard Smelter devices.
• ProcessingInputs loads processable materials such as wood, ore, barley, flax, sap, or other inputs accepted by the device. This category is off by default even when the master switch is enabled.

Chest range, cycle interval, device budget, transfer limit, refill-below thresholds, and refill-to targets are configurable. Default thresholds refill at or below 25 percent and target 100 percent. F9 stores a persistent opt-out on the individual device under the crosshair. Refueling does not switch a deliberately extinguished device on, and it does not withdraw from a chest another player currently has open.

Automatic supplies come from accessible nearby standard containers and always respect their reserve amounts. A chest does not need to accept incoming automatic storage in order to serve as a crafting, feeding, or refueling source.

Interface and feedback

The default NativeAttached interface clones Valheim's inventory-button appearance. Player actions attach to the player inventory, and Store All, Consolidate Chests, and Chest Rules attach to the open chest. Position offsets are configurable under 11 Interface; FloatingLegacy retains movable fallback panels for unusual UI layouts.

Receiving-chest glow is local and cosmetic. Duration, brightness, radius, color, and the master switch are configurable under 12 Chest Activity Glow.

Compatibility

Hearthkeeper supports vanilla and modded storage built with Valheim's standard Container, Inventory, and ZNetView components. Automatic refueling supports compatible pieces using the standard Fireplace or Smelter components. Completely custom storage or processing systems are outside Hearthkeeper's compatibility scope.

Prefab allow/block lists can include or exclude standard containers. Only the current network owner performs automatic mutations, reducing duplicate work in multiplayer. Equipment and Quick Slots is an optional soft integration and is not bundled or required.

stack sizes

Stack resizing is disabled by default. It provides a global multiplier and exact per-item overrides. Do not run another stack-size mod simultaneously.

Before disabling this feature or removing Hearthkeeper, reduce oversized stacks back under ordinary vanilla limits. Hearthkeeper does not currently include a normalization assistant or separate player/container stack limits, and Valheim or other mods may handle stacks above their normal maximums differently once Hearthkeeper's stack-size adjustments are no longer active.

Clean-origin and AI disclosure

Hearthkeeper was written as a new implementation from user-authored functional requirements using Valheim, Unity, BepInEx, and Harmony APIs. It contains no code, assets, text, configuration, or package identity copied from AzuAutoStore, GorilaChestMod, AutoFeed, or other storage mods.

Development used OpenAI tools for code generation, review, documentation, and the original package icon. Select Thunderstore's AI Generated category when publishing, as required by Thunderstore's current disclosure policy.

Privacy

Hearthkeeper makes no web requests and collects no data. It writes only its BepInEx configuration and small rule, size, and device-toggle values in the world's normal networked object data.

License and support

Hearthkeeper is distributed under the MaddCatter365 Noncommercial Mod License included with the package. Support and bug reports: MaddCatter365's Discord.