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gregCore Wiki

Developer Environment

One-time setup for building gregCore itself and C#/Lua mods. (Oxide equivalent: “Development Environment”.)

Requirements

Section titled “Requirements”
  • .NET 6 SDK (project targets net6.0; on hosts with only .NET 8/10 use DOTNET_ROLL_FORWARD=Major for tests).
  • Local Data Center install + MelonLoader run once — populates MelonLoader/Il2CppAssemblies/ and MelonLoader/net6/.
  • Game reference assemblies in references/ (Il2CppInterop dummies copied from your local install — see QUICKSTART.md §2). The framework was built on Linux (Proton-GE); Windows works identically.
  • Python 3 for scripts/ helpers (validate_version.py, generate_api_docs.py, validate_contracts.py).

Clone + build

Section titled “Clone + build”
Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/mleem97/gregCore.git
cd gregCore
dotnet build -c Release          # artifact: bin/Release/net6.0/gregCore.dll
# or dual-profile: ./build.sh --both   (Releases/ output)
Terminal window
DOTNET_ROLL_FORWARD=Major dotnet test   # only needed without a .NET 6 runtime
python3 scripts/validate_version.py 1.2.3

Single source of truth for the version is the VERSION file (currently 1.2.3); BuildInfo stamps -dev.0 on dev builds.

Key paths (repo root)

Section titled “Key paths (repo root)”
Path What is here
src/ Framework source, gregCore.* assemblies (see Core Overview)
framework/greg_hooks.json Canonical hook registry (manifest v2, 2 pinned lifecycle hooks)
game_hooks.json 1,850 patchable methods in 22 groups (IL2CPP dump)
references/ Game + loader assemblies (your local copy; never commit binaries)
examples/ Working mods in 6 languages (Lua ×4, C#, JS, Python, Rust, Go)
templates/csharp, templates/lua/example-mod Starter templates
sdk/packs/ greg-{go,js,lua,python,rust}-sdk.zip (built via scripts/Create-SDK-Packs.ps1)
tools/ GameApiGenerator (+ regenerate.sh/.ps1), GregCoverageScanner, FontAssetBundleBuilder, check-coverage.sh
scripts/ 27 helpers: build, release, mirror (gregMirror.Sync.sh), deploy (Deploy-Release-ToDataCenter.ps1, Deploy-Release-ToWorkshop.ps1), validation
tests/ gregCore.Tests (unit tests)
.forgejo/workflows, .gitea/workflows Identical CI + mirror (Forgejo = push source, GitHub = passive mirror)
.codacy/ Local CLI config (lizard, opengrep, pylint, trivy) — no duplicate CI run
.wiki/ This wiki (synced via scripts/Sync-Wiki.ps1)

Lua-only setup (no .NET needed)

Section titled “Lua-only setup (no .NET needed)”
  • Install the game + gregCore per Player Installation.
  • Write in any editor; iterate with the F12 REPL + hot-reload (on_reload()).
  • Start from templates/lua/example-mod/{main.lua, mod.json} or examples/Lua/starter_template/.

C# mod setup

Section titled “C# mod setup”
  • Start from templates/csharp/ (ExampleMod.cs, GregHost.cs with the HasCore probe, GregMod.Template.csproj).
  • Reference gregCore.dll with Private=false (soft dependency — see docs/modding/hard-dependency.md for when a hard dependency pays; the HexViewer playbook removed 351 lines by going hard).
  • Keep the JIT-split: never let a missing gregCore crash your mod at JIT time — probe GregHost.HasCore first.

Decompiler / dump workflow (Oxide “Publicizer / Using Decompiler” equivalent)

Section titled “Decompiler / dump workflow (Oxide “Publicizer / Using Decompiler” equivalent)”
  1. After a game update: run the game once with MelonLoader, re-copy interop assemblies into references/.
  2. Regenerate the API surface: tools/GameApiGenerator/regenerate.sh (writes src/gregCore.GameApi/Generated/).
  3. Regenerate hooks if methods changed: scripts/Generate-GregHooksFromIl2CppDump.ps1 (refreshes game_hooks.json); review into framework/greg_hooks.json.
  4. Validate: scripts/validate_contracts.py (coverage semantics per docs/modding/api/coverage.md) + python3 scripts/validate_version.py <VERSION> + full test run.
  5. Test vanilla-first: disable all mods, confirm the game loads, then enable yours.