Setting Up Your Development Environment

This guide will walk you through setting up a complete development environment for Hytale modding, including all necessary tools and dependencies.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have:

• A computer running Windows 10/11, macOS, or Linux
• At least 8GB of RAM
• 10GB of free disk space
• Administrative privileges on your system

Required Software

1. Java Development Kit (JDK)

Hytale modding requires Java 25 or later. We recommend using OpenJDK.

Windows

1. Download OpenJDK 25 from Adoptium
2. Run the installer with default settings
3. Verify installation by opening Command Prompt and running:

java -version

macOS

# Using Homebrew
brew install openjdk@25

echo 'export PATH="$(brew --prefix)/opt/openjdk@25/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openjdk-25-jdk

2. Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

We recommend IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition for Hytale modding.

1. Download from JetBrains website
2. Install with default settings
3. Launch and complete the initial setup wizard

3. Java Build Tool

We recommend using Apache Maven for managing dependencies and building your Hytale plugins. (Alternatively you can use Gradle, but this guide focuses on Maven.)

1. Visit the official website: https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi
2. Download this file: apache-maven-3.9.12-bin.zip (Binary zip archive)
3. Unzip it
4. Add the apache-maven-3.9.12/bin/ folder to your PATH

You can now try the command mvn -version to verify Maven is installed correctly. Make sure to do this in a fresh new terminal instead of one you had opened from before!

Setting Up Your Workspace

1. Clone the Plugin Template

Instead of creating an empty directory, we'll use the official Hytale plugin template:

# Clone the template repository
git clone https://github.com/HytaleModding/plugin-template.git MyFirstMod
cd MyFirstMod

If you don't have Git installed, you can download the ZIP file from the repository page and extract it to a folder named MyFirstMod.

2. Open Plugin in your IDEA

1. Open IntelliJ IDEA
2. Click "Open" and navigate to your MyFirstMod directory
3. IntelliJ will automatically detect it as a Maven project
4. Wait for the project to index and dependencies to download

Next Steps

Now that you have your development environment set up with the plugin template:

1. Customize the template - Edit the pom.xml and manifest.json file to change your mod's name and details
2. Explore the code structure - Familiarize yourself with the template's organization
3. Start modding - Begin writing your first Hytale plugin!

Learn how to:

• Build and Test Your Mod
• Create Commands
• Create Events

and more! Explore the documentation to learn about all available features and best practices.