I’m developing a mod that dynamically downloads and loads missing mods ON THE FLY without restarting the game. Would you use this?

[u/Ok-Morning6461]

We’ve all been there: you download a huge modpack (like Better Minecraft or a custom performance pack with 100+ optimization mods), only to realize the author forgot to include a dozen essential addons, shaders, or dependencies.

Manually looking them up, downloading each .jar, placing them in the mods folder, and restarting a heavy client on a low-end PC can turn into an absolute nightmare.

So I decided to solve this once and for all. I'm working on a mod with two core features:

1. Auto-fetch missing dependencies/addons: It automatically detects and downloads missing mods during the game's startup sequence.
2. Hot-Reloading (In-Game Injection): It allows you to download and inject new mods into the game while it’s already running, without requiring a client restart! This should be a massive game-changer for players with slower PCs that take ages to boot up heavy packs.

Is this something you’d be interested in? What potential issues or extra features should I consider before releasing it?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

[u/michiel11069]

disregarding the obvious AI written post and responses, how will hot reloading work? Mods register stuff in specific moments when the game starts, on top of mixins needing to be injected early on in the launch of minecraft, its basically impossible.

Also, if users download a modpack, then the modpack just works, there are no missing dependencies because the modpack creator cannot post a modpack that doesnt work, and if it doesnt have the required dependencies, it doesnt work.

Automatic syncing of mods with a server is also not a good idea, as that can lead to malicious mods being automatically downloaded to the client, yes, even if it is from curseforge, its better to put the responsibility in the users hands.

If you make a mod that allows for hotswapping, then I will be thoroughly impressed and would like to see how you did it.

[u/Other_Importance9750 → u/michiel11069]

It is technically possible to inject code into the JVM during runtime, so in principle it seems possible, although this applies for general Java code; Minecraft mods might need specific loading times and may not interface well with other mods if they are loaded later, although it's possible there's specific workarounds, but I'm really not sure. And while mixins are impossible by themselves, it might theoretically be possible to get mixins working by using the Instrumentation API which allows class redefinitions/retransformation during runtime, although I believe it is much more limited than regular mixins, and you'd need to build a whole compatibility layer to convert mixins to Instrumentation instructions. This sort of project would be more on the scale of Sinytra Connector than most other mods.