SMAPI/docs/technical-docs.md

← README

This file provides more technical documentation about SMAPI. If you only want to use or create mods, this section isn't relevant to you; see the main README to use or create mods.

Contents

• SMAPI
  • Development
    • Compiling from source
    • Debugging a local build
    • Preparing a release
  • Customisation
    • Configuration file
    • Command-line arguments
    • Compile flags
• SMAPI web services
  • Overview
    • Log parser
    • Web API
  • Development
    • Local development
    • Deploying to Amazon Beanstalk
• Mod build config package

SMAPI

Development

Compiling from source

Using an official SMAPI release is recommended for most users.

SMAPI uses some C# 7 code, so you'll need at least Visual Studio 2017 on Windows, MonoDevelop 7.0 on Linux, Visual Studio 2017 for Mac, or an equivalent IDE to compile it. It uses build configuration derived from the crossplatform mod config to detect your current OS automatically and load the correct references. Compile output will be placed in a bin folder at the root of the git repository.

Debugging a local build

Rebuilding the solution in debug mode will copy the SMAPI files into your game folder. Starting the StardewModdingAPI project with debugging from Visual Studio (on Mac or Windows) will launch SMAPI with the debugger attached, so you can intercept errors and step through the code being executed. This doesn't work in MonoDevelop on Linux, unfortunately.

Preparing a release

To prepare a crossplatform SMAPI release, you'll need to compile it on two platforms. See crossplatforming info on the wiki for the first-time setup.

1. Update the version number in GlobalAssemblyInfo.cs and Constants::Version. Make sure you use a semantic version. Recommended format:

   build type	format	example
   dev build	<version>-alpha.<date>	3.0-alpha.20171230
   prerelease	<version>-beta.<count>	3.0-beta.2
   release	<version>	3.0

2. In Windows:

   1. Rebuild the solution in Release mode.
   2. Copy windows-install.* from bin/SMAPI installer and bin/SMAPI installer for developers to Linux/Mac.

3. In Linux/Mac:

   1. Rebuild the solution in Release mode.
   2. Add the windows-install.* files to the bin/SMAPI installer and bin/SMAPI installer for developers folders.
   3. Rename the folders to SMAPI <version> installer and SMAPI <version> installer for developers.
   4. Zip the two folders.

Customisation

Configuration file

You can customise the SMAPI behaviour by editing the smapi-internal/StardewModdingAPI.config.json file in your game folder.

Basic fields:

field	purpose
DeveloperMode	Default false (except in SMAPI for developers releases). Whether to enable features intended for mod developers (mainly more detailed console logging).
CheckForUpdates	Default true. Whether SMAPI should check for a newer version when you load the game. If a new version is available, a small message will appear in the console. This doesn't affect the load time even if your connection is offline or slow, because it happens in the background.
VerboseLogging	Default false. Whether SMAPI should log more information about the game context.
ModData	Internal metadata about SMAPI mods. Changing this isn't recommended and may destabilise your game. See documentation in the file.

Command-line arguments

The SMAPI installer recognises three command-line arguments:

argument	purpose
--install	Preselects the install action, skipping the prompt asking what the user wants to do.
--uninstall	Preselects the uninstall action, skipping the prompt asking what the user wants to do.
--game-path "path"	Specifies the full path to the folder containing the Stardew Valley executable, skipping automatic detection and any prompt to choose a path. If the path is not valid, the installer displays an error.

SMAPI itself recognises two arguments, but these are intended for internal use or testing and may change without warning.

argument	purpose
--no-terminal	SMAPI won't write anything to the console window. (Messages will still be written to the log file.)
--mods-path	The path to search for mods, if not the standard Mods folder. This can be a path relative to the game folder (like --mods-path "Mods (test)") or an absolute path.

Compile flags

SMAPI uses a small number of conditional compilation constants, which you can set by editing the <DefineConstants> element in StardewModdingAPI.csproj. Supported constants:

flag	purpose
SMAPI_FOR_WINDOWS	Whether SMAPI is being compiled on Windows for players on Windows. Set automatically in crossplatform.targets.
SMAPI_3_0_STRICT	Whether to exclude all deprecated APIs from compilation. This is useful for testing mods for SMAPI 3.0 compatibility.

SMAPI web services

Overview

The StardewModdingAPI.Web project provides an API and web UI hosted at *.smapi.io.

Log parser

The log parser provides a web UI for uploading, parsing, and sharing SMAPI logs. The logs are persisted in a compressed form to Pastebin.

The log parser lives at https://log.smapi.io.

Web API

SMAPI provides a web API at api.smapi.io for use by SMAPI and external tools. The URL includes a {version} token, which is the SMAPI version for backwards compatibility. This API is publicly accessible but not officially released; it may change at any time.

The API has one /mods endpoint. This provides mod info, including official versions and URLs (from Chucklefish, GitHub, or Nexus), unofficial versions from the wiki, and optional mod metadata from the wiki and SMAPI's internal data. This is used by SMAPI to perform update checks, and by external tools to fetch mod data.

The API accepts a POST request with the mods to match, each of which must specify an ID and may optionally specify update keys. The API will automatically try to fetch known update keys from the wiki and internal data based on the given ID.

POST https://api.smapi.io/v2.0/mods
{
   "mods": [
      {
         "id": "Pathoschild.LookupAnything",
         "updateKeys": [ "nexus:541", "chucklefish:4250" ]
      }
   ],
   "includeExtendedMetadata": true
}

The API will automatically aggregate versions and errors. Each mod will include...

• an id (matching what you passed in);
• up to three versions: main (e.g. 'latest version' field on Nexus), optional if newer (e.g. optional files on Nexus), and unofficial if newer (from the wiki);
• metadata with mod info crossreferenced from the wiki and internal data (only if you specified includeExtendedMetadata: true);
• and errors containing any error messages that occurred while fetching data.

For example:

[
   {
      "id": "Pathoschild.LookupAnything",
      "main": {
         "version": "1.19",
         "url": "https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/541"
      },
      "metadata": {
         "id": [
            "Pathoschild.LookupAnything",
            "LookupAnything"
         ],
         "name": "Lookup Anything",
         "nexusID": 541,
         "gitHubRepo": "Pathoschild/StardewMods",
         "compatibilityStatus": "Ok",
         "compatibilitySummary": "✓ use latest version."
      },
      "errors": []
   }
]

Development

Local development

StardewModdingAPI.Web is a regular ASP.NET MVC Core app, so you can just launch it from within Visual Studio to run a local version.

There are two differences when it's run locally: all endpoints use HTTP instead of HTTPS, and the subdomain portion becomes a route (e.g. log.smapi.io → localhost:59482/log).

Before running it locally, you need to enter your credentials in the appsettings.Development.json file. See the next section for a description of each setting. This file is listed in .gitignore to prevent accidentally committing credentials.

Deploying to Amazon Beanstalk

The app can be deployed to a standard Amazon Beanstalk IIS environment. When creating the environment, make sure to specify the following environment properties:

property name	description
LogParser:PastebinDevKey	The Pastebin developer key used to authenticate with the Pastebin API.
LogParser:PastebinUserKey	The Pastebin user key used to authenticate with the Pastebin API. Can be left blank to post anonymously.
LogParser:SectionUrl	The root URL of the log page, like https://log.smapi.io/.
ModUpdateCheck:GitHubPassword	The password with which to authenticate to GitHub when fetching release info.
ModUpdateCheck:GitHubUsername	The username with which to authenticate to GitHub when fetching release info.

Mod build config package

Overview

The mod build config package is a NuGet package that mods reference to automatically set up references, configure the build, and add analyzers specific to Stardew Valley mods.

This involves three projects:

project	purpose
StardewModdingAPI.ModBuildConfig	Configures the build (references, deploying the mod files, setting up debugging, etc).
StardewModdingAPI.ModBuildConfig.Analyzer	Adds C# analyzers which show code warnings in Visual Studio.
StardewModdingAPI.ModBuildConfig.Analyzer.Tests	Unit tests for the C# analyzers.

When the projects are built, the relevant files are copied into bin/Pathoschild.Stardew.ModBuildConfig.

Preparing a build

To prepare a build of the NuGet package:

1. Install the NuGet CLI.
2. Change the version and release notes in package.nuspec.
3. Rebuild the solution in Release mode.
4. Open a terminal in the bin/Pathoschild.Stardew.ModBuildConfig package and run this command:

   nuget.exe pack
   

That will create a Pathoschild.Stardew.ModBuildConfig-<version>.nupkg file in the same directory which can be uploaded to NuGet or referenced directly.