Modding:Modder Guide/APIs

Creating SMAPI mods

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• Get started
• Game fundamentals
• Test & troubleshoot
• Release
• API reference

  Basic SMAPI APIs:

  • Mod structure
  • Manifest
  • Events
  • Configuration
  • Load & edit content
  • Data
  • Input
  • Logging
  • Reflection
  • Multiplayer
  • Translation
  • Update checks
  • Utilities

  Advanced SMAPI APIs:

  • Content packs
  • Mod console commands
  • Mod integrations
  • Harmony patching

• Specific guides

← Modding:Index

SMAPI provides a number of APIs for mods to use. Click a section on the right or below for more details.

Basic APIs

page	summary
Manifest	A file needed for every mod or content pack which describes the mod, lists dependencies, enables update checks, etc.
Events	Respond when something happens in the game (e.g. when a save is loaded), and often include details about what happened.
Mod configuration	Let players edit a config.json file to configure your mod.
Content	Load images/maps/data, and edit or replace the game's images/maps/data.
Logging	Write messages to the SMAPI console and log.
Reflection	Access fields, properties, or methods which are normally inaccessible.
Multiplayer	Provides methods for supporting multiplayer.
Translation	Translate your mod text into any game language.
Utilities	Use constants, contextual information, date logic, and semantic versions.

Advanced APIs

page	summary
Content packs	Let other modders provide files for your mod to read, which players can install like any other mod.
Console commands	Add custom commands to the SMAPI console.
Mod integrations	Get information about loaded mods, and integrate with mods using mod-provided APIs.

Mod APIs

Logging

Your mod can write messages to the console window and log file using the monitor. For example, this code:

this.Monitor.Log("a trace message", LogLevel.Trace);
this.Monitor.Log("a debug message", LogLevel.Debug);
this.Monitor.Log("an info message", LogLevel.Info);
this.Monitor.Log("a warning message", LogLevel.Warn);
this.Monitor.Log("an error message", LogLevel.Error);

will log something like this:

[18:00:00 TRACE Mod Name] a trace message
[18:00:00 DEBUG Mod Name] a debug message
[18:00:00 INFO Mod Name] an info message
[18:00:00 WARN Mod Name] a warning message
[18:00:00 ERROR Mod Name] an error message

Note that LogLevel.Trace messages won't appear in the console window by default, they'll only be written to the log file. Trace messages are for troubleshooting details that are useful when someone sends you their error log, but which the player normally doesn't need to see. (You can see trace messages in the console if you install the "SMAPI for developers" version.)

Reflection

SMAPI provides an API for robustly accessing fields, properties, or methods you otherwise couldn't access, such as private fields. You can use it from helper.Reflection in your entry method, or this.Helper.Reflection elsewhere in your entry class.

Here are a few examples of what this lets you do:

// did you pet your pet today?
bool wasPet = this.Helper.Reflection.GetField<bool>(pet, "wasPetToday").GetValue();

// what is the spirit forecast today?
string forecast = this.Helper.Reflection
   .GetMethod(new TV(), "getFortuneForecast")
   .Invoke<string>();

// randomise the mines
if(Game1.currentLocation is MineShaft)
   this.Helper.Reflection.GetField<Random>(Game1.currentLocation, "mineRandom").SetValue(new Random());

This works with static or instance fields/methods, caches the reflection to improve performance, and will throw useful errors automatically when reflection fails.

If you need to do more, you can switch to C#'s underlying reflection API:

FieldInfo field = this.Helper.Reflection.GetField<string>(…).FieldInfo;
MethodInfo method = this.Helper.Reflection.GetMethod(…).MethodInfo;

Multiplayer

The multiplayer API provides methods to support modding in a multiplayer context:

// get a unique multiplayer ID (e.g. for animal IDs)
int uniqueID = this.Helper.Multiplayer.GetNewID();

// get the locations being sync'd from the main player
foreach (GameLocation location in this.Helper.Multiplayer.GetActiveLocations())