modcache is a Rust cli program that builds and then queries a local cache of the sections Nexus Mods registry. I play a lot of Skyrim, and have a long active modlist and and even longer list of Skyrim SE mods I'm interested in shuffling around. I find Nexus's own categorization and search tools to be inadequate and was interested in discovering if a local restructuring of the data would be useful. The data they make available from their API is missing user-provided tags, sadly, but perhaps some full-text search will help?
Another intended use case was for me to scan my list of tracked mods to see which ones I haven't downloaded or kept up to date. This use case is also impossible because the Nexus does not make your download history available through its API. Oh well.
However, the tool is still useful as a very rapid local search of all the locally-cached data. Results are sortable; run modcache search --help for options.
The output has clickable http links to the Nexus if your terminal supports it. If you have mdcat or glow installed, the detailed info display for a single mod-- invoked as modcache mod <id> [game]-- will render the mod's description in your terminal.
Install Rust for your platform with rustup. Copy .env-example into .env and add your api key, which you can find on the Nexus settings page. Run cargo run -- help for usage. cargo run -- <command> --help shows detailed help for that command.
Tools for making a local searchable database of the Nexus mod list for a moddable game.
Usage: modcache [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>
Commands:
validate Test your Nexus API key; whoami
tracked Fetch your list of tracked mods and show a by-game summary
populate Populate the local cache with mods tracked for a specific game
search Find mods that mention this string in their names or text summaries
by-name Find mods with names matching the given string, for the named game
by-author Find mods by the given author, for the named game
track Track a specific mod
untrack Stop tracking a mod or list of mods, by id
untrack-removed Stop tracking all removed mods for a specific game
changelogs Get changelogs for a specific mod
files Get the list of files for a specific mod. Not very useful yet
endorsements Fetch the list of mods you have endorsed
endorse Endorse a mod or list of mods
abstain Abstain from endorsing a mod
game Get Nexus metadata about a game by slug
mods Get all mods locally cached for this game by slug
hidden Find mods for this game that are hidden, probably so you can untrack them
removed Find mods for this game that are removed, probably so you can untrack them
wastebinned Find mods for this game that were wastebinned by their authors
trending Show the 10 top all-time trending mods for a game
latest Show 10 mods most recently added for a game
updated Show the 10 mods most recently updated for a game
mod Display detailed info for a single mod
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
Options:
-v, --verbose... Pass -v or -vv to increase verbosity
-j, --json Emit full output as json; not applicable everywhere
-r, --refresh Refresh data from the Nexus; not applicable everywhere
-h, --help Print help
-V, --version Print version
My workflow was to run modcache tracked to get my full tracked modlist into cache, then run modcache populate skyrimspecialedition --limit 90 every hour until I had the 3K+ mods I track stored locally.
--refresh uses the weak etag the Nexus returns to see if their data has changed. This dings you an API request even if you get a 304 back :(.
If you have just installed, the justfile provides some conveniences for building and running the tool.
Blue Oak Model License; text in LICENSE.md.