Publishing a Mod

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Releasing a BepInEx mod - GitHub releases and Thunderstore packages

Publishing a mod

GitHub release

A mod is one DLL plus optional files. Do not commit the build output (bin/, obj/) or the interop/ folder: the interop assemblies are generated from your own copy of the game and contain the game's code, so they cannot be shared. For the same reason a CI service (GitHub Actions) cannot build a mod that references them; build on your machine.

  1. dotnet build -c Release --no-incremental (a plain dotnet build may skip compiling when it thinks the DLL is up to date; --no-incremental always compiles).
  2. Zip YourMod.dll (and any files it needs) as YourMod-1.0.0.zip.
  3. On GitHub create a release with the tag v1.0.0 and attach the zip. Players copy the DLL to BepInEx/plugins.

Thunderstore

A Thunderstore package is a zip with these files at its root:

File Content
manifest.json name, version_number, website_url, description, dependencies
README.md The page shown on Thunderstore
icon.png 256x256 picture
YourMod.dll The mod. Put it in a plugins folder if you want the archive to merge into the game folder by hand.

List other mods in dependencies (for example UiKit) in the form Author-Name-1.0.0, instead of copying their DLLs. Mod managers install dependencies automatically. In code add [BepInDependency("plugin.guid")] so that the dependency loads first.

Tip

Test the package by installing it with a mod manager into a clean game folder before you upload it.