Usage Steam Workshop

Steam Workshop

Part of the Usage reference. · ← Previous: Steam Cloud · Next: Friends & chat →

Manage Steam Workshop items (published files) for a game. Except for the local portion of status, these commands require an active session.

An <ID> is a Workshop published-file id, the numeric id in a Workshop page's URL (…/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1234567890). To find ids in the first place, use workshop browse. Wherever ids are accepted, a collection id may be given in its place: by default a collection is expanded to its member items (recursively, with cycles and duplicates removed), and each member is acted on. Pass --no-recurse to act on the listed id itself without expanding.

What gets stored. Installing downloads an item's content into

<library>/steamapps/workshop/content/<APP_ID>/<ID>/

and records it in <library>/steamapps/workshop/appworkshop_<APP_ID>.acf, so the Steam client itself recognises the item as installed. The library is Aurelia's configured Steam library (see config show).

How content is retrieved. A Workshop item carries an hcontent_file manifest id on the game's workshop depot. Aurelia downloads it through the same content-server → manifest → CDN-chunk pipeline used by install (decrypting and decompressing each chunk with the depot key). This v1 supports SteamPipe items (the modern norm). Legacy file_url UGC is not yet supported and is rejected with a clear error.

workshop browse

Search/browse a game's Workshop to discover items (and their ids) to subscribe to or install (PublishedFile.QueryFiles under the hood). This is the entry point when you don't already know an item's id.

aurelia workshop browse <APP_ID> [-s <TEXT>] [--sort <ORDER>] [--count <N>] [--cursor <C>] [--tag <TAG>]... [--json]

Option	Description
-s, --search <TEXT>	Free-text match on title/description.
-o, --sort <ORDER>	Result ordering: trend (default), popular, recent, updated, subscriptions, text. Use text with --search for best relevance.
-n, --count <N>	Results per page, 1–100 (default 20).
-c, --cursor <C>	Pagination cursor. Pass a previous page's next_cursor. * is the first page (default).
-t, --tag <TAG>	Restrict to items carrying this tag (repeatable, all must match).

The text view is an ID / SIZE / TITLE table, followed by the match total and, when more results remain, the --cursor value to pass for the next page. The --json output is { "app_id", "total", "next_cursor", "items": [ <item object>... ] }, where each item has the same shape as workshop info. Paging is cursor-based: start at *, then feed each response's next_cursor back via --cursor until it stops advancing.

aurelia workshop browse 1245620                          # trending items
aurelia workshop browse 1245620 --search "hd textures"   # search
aurelia workshop browse 1245620 --sort subscriptions --count 50
aurelia workshop browse 1245620 --tag Gameplay --tag Mod --json
aurelia workshop browse 1245620 --cursor "AoJw0Yzg..."   # next page

workshop info

Show metadata for one or more items/collections, fetched in a single batched PublishedFile.GetDetails call.

aurelia workshop info <ID>... [--json]

The text view prints id, title, owning app, type (item/collection), and, for items, size and content manifest id, and for collections the member count. The --json output is an array of objects (a single id still yields a one-element array): { "id", "app_id", "title", "hcontent_file", "file_url", "file_size", "time_updated", "kind" ("Item"|"Collection"), "children": [<id>...] } (children is populated for collections, empty otherwise, and hcontent_file is 0 for legacy/collection entries).

aurelia workshop info 1234567890
aurelia workshop info 1234567890 2345678901 --json

workshop list

List the Workshop items you're subscribed to for a game (your subscriptions are enumerated, then resolved to metadata).

aurelia workshop list <APP_ID> [--json]

The text view is an ID / SIZE / TITLE table. --json emits the same array of item objects as workshop info.

aurelia workshop list 1245620
aurelia workshop list 1245620 --json

workshop install

Download one or more items/collections and register them in the workshop manifest. Progress is streamed to the terminal, and as NDJSON with --json, the same event stream as install (queued → progress …), followed by one result line per item.

aurelia workshop install <ID>... [--no-recurse] [--json]

Option	Description
-R, --no-recurse	Install only the given ids. Don't expand a collection to its members.

The per-item --json result line is { "event": "result", "id", "app_id", "status": "installed" }. Installing a collection id (without --no-recurse) installs every member.

aurelia workshop install 1234567890
aurelia workshop install 5000000000              # a collection — installs all its items
aurelia workshop install 9000000000 --no-recurse # the collection entry only, no members

workshop uninstall

Remove installed items/collections: deletes each item's content directory and its entry in appworkshop_<APP_ID>.acf. The owning app of each id is resolved via GetDetails (so this needs a session).

aurelia workshop uninstall <ID>... [--no-recurse] [--json]

Option	Description
-R, --no-recurse	Uninstall only the given ids. Don't expand a collection to its members.

The --json output is { "uninstalled": [<id>...] }.

aurelia workshop uninstall 1234567890
aurelia workshop uninstall 5000000000 --json

workshop subscribe / unsubscribe

Subscribe to or unsubscribe from items/collections. By default subscribe only registers the subscription. Pass --install to also download the content immediately (streaming progress, as install does).

aurelia workshop subscribe   <ID>... [--install] [--no-recurse] [--json]
aurelia workshop unsubscribe <ID>... [--no-recurse] [--json]

Option	Description
-i, --install	(subscribe only) Download the content after subscribing.
-R, --no-recurse	Act on the given ids only. Don't expand a collection to its members.

subscribe --json: { "subscribed": [<id>...], "installed": <bool> }. unsubscribe --json: { "unsubscribed": [<id>...] }.

aurelia workshop subscribe 1234567890 --install
aurelia workshop subscribe 5000000000            # subscribe to a collection's items
aurelia workshop unsubscribe 1234567890

workshop status

Report, per item, whether it's installed, subscribed, and whether an update is available (the installed content manifest differs from the current hcontent_file). The installed set is read locally from appworkshop_<APP_ID>.acf. Subscription and update state are best-effort: they need the network, and are omitted/blank when offline.

aurelia workshop status <APP_ID> [--json]

The text view is an ID / INSTALLED / SUBSCRIBED / UPDATE / TITLE table over the union of installed and subscribed items. The --json output is { "app_id", "items": [{ "id", "title", "installed", "subscribed", "update_available" }] }.

aurelia workshop status 1245620
aurelia workshop status 1245620 --json

workshop rate

Rate a Workshop item thumbs-up or thumbs-down (PublishedFile.Vote).

aurelia workshop rate <ID> <up|down> [--json]

The --json output is { "id", "vote": "up"|"down", "status": "rated" }.

aurelia workshop rate 1234567890 up
aurelia workshop rate 1234567890 down --json

workshop comments

Read the comments on a Workshop item's public comment thread (Community.GetCommentThread).

aurelia workshop comments <ID> [--count <N>] [--start <N>] [--json]

Option	Description
-n, --count <N>	How many comments to fetch, 1–100 (default 20).
-s, --start <N>	Index of the first comment to fetch, for paging (default 0).

The text view prints each comment's timestamp, author SteamID, upvote count, and body. The --json output is { "id", "comments": [{ "id", "author", "timestamp", "text", "upvotes" }] } (author is a SteamID64; id is the comment's gidcomment).

aurelia workshop comments 1234567890
aurelia workshop comments 1234567890 --count 50 --start 50
aurelia workshop comments 1234567890 --json

workshop comment

Post a comment to a Workshop item's comment thread (Community.PostCommentToThread).

aurelia workshop comment <ID> <TEXT> [--json]

Quote the text if it contains spaces. The --json output is { "id", "comment_id", "status": "posted" } (comment_id is the new comment's gidcomment).

aurelia workshop comment 1234567890 "Great mod, thanks!"
aurelia workshop comment 1234567890 "Works perfectly" --json