gtnh-daily-updater

CLI tool for keeping an existing GregTech: New Horizons instance up to date with GTNH daily or experimental manifests.

It tracks installed mods, downloads changes, and applies config updates using git to merge pack changes while preserving user edits.

Warning

This is only used for updating from a daily to a daily or an experimental to an experimental
If coming from the old gtnh-nightly-updater jar, it is best to start from scratch and manually copy any user added mods and config changes (as well as the other folders on the wiki page about updating)

Always make a full instance backup before first using this program

Features

• Initializes tracking from an existing instance (init)
• Updates mods to manifest-pinned versions (update)
• Optional --latest mode to use newest non-pre releases when available (Only use if you know what you are doing)
• Tracks config files with a local git branch; merges pack updates automatically (pack wins on conflicts)
• Supports excluded mods and user-defined extra mods
• Supports named profiles and multi-profile batch updates (update-all)
• Download caching and configurable concurrency
• Optional startup self-update check with SHA256-verified self-update command

Requirements

• Go 1.25+ (for building/running from source)
• Existing GTNH instance directory
• Network access to GTNH manifests/assets and mod download sources
• Git (for config updates, skipped if missing)
• Optional GITHUB_TOKEN for private GitHub downloads or higher API limits

Installation

Releases are available for Linux, Windows, and MacOS
No Go required
Just download the version for your OS and run it from the command line.
Note: I suggest putting it somewhere in your PATH so it can be ran from anywhere.
On Linux, I have ~/.local/bin added to my PATH

Building from source code:

go build -o gtnh-daily-updater .

Or install into your Go bin:

go install .

Building on Windows (to avoid UAC admin prompts):

On Windows, the build process generates a manifest file that prevents unnecessary UAC prompts. To build with the manifest:

# Install rsrc (one-time setup)
go install github.com/akavel/rsrc@v0.10.2

# Generate the Windows manifest resource
rsrc -manifest gtnh-daily-updater.manifest -arch amd64 -o rsrc_windows_amd64.syso

# Build the executable (go will automatically link the .syso file)
go build -o gtnh-daily-updater.exe .

For another Windows architecture (for example, 386), keep GOARCH and rsrc -arch aligned:

$env:GOARCH = "386"
rsrc -manifest gtnh-daily-updater.manifest -arch $env:GOARCH -o "rsrc_windows_$($env:GOARCH).syso"
go build -o gtnh-daily-updater.exe .

Quick Start

1. Initialize state for an existing instance:

Note: You MUST pass the current config version your instance has. It will not work correctly otherwise.
Config versions can be found at https://github.com/GTNewHorizons/GT-New-Horizons-Modpack/releases. For Daily and Experimental builds, the config version is found in the gtnh-XXXXXX-manifest.json build artifact and will likely be 2.X.0-nightly-<daily build date>.

For MultiMC/Prism clients, the instance-dir should be the folder that contains the .minecraft folder, not the .minecraft folder itself.
For servers, the instance-dir is the root of the server folder, the one that contains mods, config, etc.

gtnh-daily-updater init \
  --instance-dir "/path/to/instance" \
  --side client \
  --config 2.9.0-nightly-2026-02-10

Use --side server for servers.

For experimental packs:

gtnh-daily-updater init \
  --instance-dir "/path/to/instance" \
  --side client \
  --mode experimental \
  --config 2.9.0-nightly-2026-02-10

2. Check current status:

gtnh-daily-updater status --instance-dir "/path/to/instance"

3. Preview changes:

gtnh-daily-updater update --instance-dir "/path/to/instance" --dry-run

4. Apply update:

gtnh-daily-updater update --instance-dir "/path/to/instance"

Common Commands

• update: apply a single-instance update
• update-all <profile> [profile...]: update multiple saved profiles sequentially
• status: compare local state vs latest manifest
• config diff [--all] [path]: show tracked file drift, or file-level diff for one path
• exclude add|remove|list: skip selected manifest mods
• extra add|remove|list: manage non-manifest mods
• profile create|list|show|delete: manage reusable option sets
• self-update: download and install the latest release after SHA256 verification

Inspect all options:

gtnh-daily-updater --help
gtnh-daily-updater <command> --help

Excludes and Extra Mods

Exclude manifest mods:

gtnh-daily-updater exclude add ModName AnotherMod
gtnh-daily-updater exclude list

Add extra mods from assets DB (default source):

gtnh-daily-updater extra add Angelica

Add extra mods from GitHub releases:

gtnh-daily-updater extra add SomeMod --source github:Owner/Repo

Add extra mods from CurseForge (latest release file, requires CurseForge API key):

gtnh-daily-updater extra add SomeMod --source curseforge:12345

Add extra mods from CurseForge (pinned file):

gtnh-daily-updater extra add SomeMod --source curseforge:12345/67890

Add extra mods from Modrinth (latest release, no API key needed, rate limit 300/min/ip):

gtnh-daily-updater extra add SomeMod --source modrinth:slug-or-id

Add extra mods from Modrinth (pinned version):

gtnh-daily-updater extra add SomeMod --source modrinth:slug-or-id/versionID

Add extra mods from direct URL:

gtnh-daily-updater extra add CustomMod --source https://example.com/CustomMod.jar

Pick a specific jar from a GitHub release that ships multiple variants. Use --match <regex> to select the asset; the pattern must uniquely match one .jar, otherwise the candidate names are listed so you can refine. Anchor patterns can be used (e.g. "unlimited\.jar$" for JourneyMap, "-\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.jar$" for GTNH-Web-Map) to avoid matching -dev, -sources, or -preshadow variants:

gtnh-daily-updater extra add journeymap \
    --source github:TeamJM/journeymap-legacy \
    --match "unlimited\.jar$"

A same-name extra overrides the manifest entry — no need to exclude the original version first. This is the supported way to swap, for example, the manifest's journeymap-fairplay for the unlimited build from the same release.

Profiles

Profiles are stored as TOML files under the OS-native user config directory:

• Linux: ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/gtnh-daily-updater/profiles
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/gtnh-daily-updater/profiles
• Windows: %AppData%\gtnh-daily-updater\profiles

Profiles previously stored under ~/.config/gtnh-daily-updater on macOS/Windows are auto-migrated to the new location on first run.

Create and use a profile:

gtnh-daily-updater profile create main-client \
  --instance-dir "/path/to/instance" \
  --side client \
  --concurrency 8

gtnh-daily-updater update --profile main-client

Batch update profiles:

gtnh-daily-updater update-all main-client alt-server

State, Paths, and Merge Behavior

• Local state is stored at <instance-dir>/.gtnh-daily-updater.json
• On Prism/MultiMC layouts, game files are resolved under <instance-dir>/.minecraft/
• On server/other layouts, game files are resolved directly under <instance-dir>/
• Config files are tracked in a git repo at <game-dir>/.gtnh-configs/ on a local branch; pack updates are applied via git merge -X theirs (pack wins on conflicts)
• Tracked items: config/, journeymap/ (preserving data/), resourcepacks/ (client only), serverutilities/, servers.json (client only)
• config diff shows your changes relative to the pack version (git diff <configVersion>..local)
• config diff "GregTech/Pollution.cfg" shows diff for a specific file (also accepts config/GregTech/Pollution.cfg)
• Config tracking requires git; config updates are skipped gracefully if git is unavailable or the repo hasn't been initialized yet

Caching and Performance

• Default mod cache and log directory lives under the OS-native user cache directory:
  • Linux: ${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-~/.cache}/gtnh-daily-updater/{mods,logs}
  • macOS: ~/Library/Caches/gtnh-daily-updater/{mods,logs}
  • Windows: %LocalAppData%\gtnh-daily-updater\{mods,logs}
• Caches/logs previously stored under ~/.cache/gtnh-daily-updater on macOS/Windows are auto-migrated to the new location on first run.
• Disable cache with --no-cache
• Override cache location with --cache-dir
• Control parallel downloads with --concurrency (default: 6)
• Logs are written to <cache-dir>/logs/<timestamp>.log; debug output is always written to the log file regardless of the -v flag

GitHub Token

Provide token via env var:

export GITHUB_TOKEN=your_token_here

Or pass per command:

gtnh-daily-updater update --github-token your_token_here

CurseForge API Key

Required to use curseforge: extra mod sources. Get a key at https://console.curseforge.com/.

Provide via env var:

export CURSEFORGE_API_KEY=your_key_here

Or pass per command:

gtnh-daily-updater update --curseforge-key your_key_here

Self-Update

The tool can check GitHub for newer releases at startup and install them on demand. Both behaviors are off by default.

A global config file is created on first run at:

• Linux: ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/gtnh-daily-updater/config.toml
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/gtnh-daily-updater/config.toml
• Windows: %AppData%\gtnh-daily-updater\config.toml

auto_update_check = false
include_prereleases = false

When auto_update_check = false (default), the tool prints a one-line hint pointing to the config file. When true, each invocation queries GitHub (3s timeout, silent on failure) and prints a notice if a newer release is available.

Install the latest release:

gtnh-daily-updater self-update            # prompts for confirmation
gtnh-daily-updater self-update --yes      # skip prompt (non-interactive)
gtnh-daily-updater self-update --prerelease

The downloaded zip's SHA256 is verified against the digest published by the GitHub release API before the running binary is replaced. On Windows, the previous binary is left as <exe>.old and removed on next startup.

Development

Run tests:

go test ./...