Getting Started

Getting Started

This page gets the extension installed and pointed at your game in about five minutes.

1. Install the extension

The extension ID is JDeffner.ck3-modding-toolkit.

• From a .vsix file: open VS Code, go to the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X), open the ... menu at the top of the view, choose Install from VSIX..., and pick the downloaded file.
• From the Marketplace (when available): search for "CK3 Modding Toolkit" in the Extensions view and install it (tick the "pre-release" option if VS Code offers it).

2. Open your mod folder

Open the folder that contains your mod's descriptor.mod (for example File → Open Folder...). This is the folder with common/, events/, localization/ and so on inside it.

If you keep several mods, you can open a parent directory that holds all of them, or add each mod as a folder in a multi-root workspace. All of them are treated as first-class mods. See Multi Mod and Translation for the details. There is no "primary mod" to pick.

VS Code newcomers: the folder you open is your "workspace". Most of what this extension does is scoped to the mods it finds inside that workspace.

3. Run Setup

Open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and run CK3: Run Setup & Health Check. It:

• finds your CK3 install via Steam,
• checks the logs folder (where the game writes error.log and the script_docs dumps),
• offers to download ck3-tiger, the validator the diagnostics integration wraps.

The default answer to "what do I need to configure?" is nothing. Setup auto-detects the machine paths, and everything in Configuration is optional. Run Setup once and you are ready to edit.

4. (Recommended) Upgrade to version-exact data

Out of the box the extension uses bundled wiki token lists, which work but can lag your patch. To get the exact effect / trigger / scope / modifier data for your installed game version:

1. Launch CK3 with the -debug_mode launch option (or run CK3: Launch CK3 (debug mode) from the palette).
2. In game, open the console with the backtick key (`, above Tab).
3. Type script_docs and press Enter. The game writes the dumps to your logs folder.
4. Back in VS Code, run CK3: Reload Game Data (script_docs).

This upgrades the token data from the bundled wiki lists to your exact game version, including modifiers and the scope-transition data the scope engine relies on. Do it again after a game patch to stay current.

While you are in the console, DumpDataTypes similarly upgrades the GUI / localization data-binding API (the [Character.GetFather...] chains) to a complete, version-exact set.

Next

• Editor Features for the day-to-day tour of what you get while editing.
• Configuration if auto-detection missed something, or you want to tune diagnostics.