skyrim-modding-tools-mcp

Mod Skyrim Special Edition by talking to your AI agent. This MCP server gives Claude Code, Claude Desktop, VS Code — any MCP client — the tools to look into your whole load order, make mods and patches, install mods from Nexus Mods and read your crash logs. It works with Mod Organizer 2 on Windows and Amethyst Mod Manager on Linux.

Ask it things like:

Make me a sword called Flame Blade that sets enemies on fire.

Which mods change the Iron Sword, and which one wins?

Make a patch that makes the Iron Sword a bit stronger.

My game just crashed. Why?

A mod is made as text: one YAML file per record, in a project you can keep in git, built into a real plugin and deployed into your mod manager. The Creation Kit stays for what only it can do, like placing objects and navmesh; its work is pulled back into the text. Plugins are read and written by Mutagen; the text is Spriggit's format.

What it offers

🔍 Look things up

✍️ Make mods and patches

📦 Find and install mods

💥 Keep the game running

📚 Know how

readSkill serves the modding skills — how plugins, FormIDs, load order and conflicts work, the community's tools, and one skill each for items and crafting, magic, NPCs, leveled lists, game updates and crash analysis. readServerGuide serves the server's own guides, and healthcheck says what the server is bound to.

Related MCP server: Notes Manager

Modding with Muddy! 🦀

Meet Muddy, the modding agent: a mudcrab from the shore below Riverwood who learned to mod Skyrim. Cheerful, proud of his shell, and exact at the workbench. He reads the skills before he writes a record, builds until the build says success, and leaves your mod manager alone unless you ask.

npm run setup sets him up after a yes, and the guide to Muddy has the steps for each client:

Or paste this prompt into the agent you use, and it sets him up for you. The simplest way of all: copy his two files, AGENTS.md and SOUL.md, into the folder your agent works in.

Requirements

• Skyrim Special Edition 1.5.97 to 1.7.x, managed by Mod Organizer 2 (2.5) on Windows, or Amethyst Mod Manager (2.5) on Linux. Mod Organizer under Proton is experimental (docs/Hosting.md §5).

• Node.js 24 and git. npm run setup brings the rest: the .NET 10 SDK, and on Linux a Papyrus compiler.

• Optional: Git LFS, if you keep your projects in git and they hold meshes or textures — the projects folder's .gitattributes sends those to it once it is installed. Without it, git keeps them as ordinary files.

• For compiling Papyrus scripts (optional otherwise): the Creation Kit (free on Steam) for its vanilla script sources; on Windows its compiler needs .NET Framework 3.5 (Windows Features).

Setup

Windows, in PowerShell — the first two lines only for what you do not have yet, then open a new PowerShell:

winget install --exact --id OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS
winget install --exact --id Git.Git
git clone https://github.com/Ciltress/skyrim-modding-tools-mcp
cd skyrim-modding-tools-mcp
npm run setup

Linux (CachyOS, Arch):

sudo pacman -S --needed nodejs npm git
git clone https://github.com/Ciltress/skyrim-modding-tools-mcp ~/skyrim-modding-tools-mcp
cd ~/skyrim-modding-tools-mcp
npm run setup

npm run setup installs the .NET 10 SDK if it is missing, builds the server and its plugin helper, and finds your mod manager — it asks for the Mod Organizer instance only when it finds none, and for your Nexus Mods API key if you want to download through Nexus (a premium account's; searching and reading Nexus need none). It registers the server with Claude Code, Claude Desktop and VS Code, sets up Muddy, and ends with a healthcheck: the instance, profile and game version it found. Everything it installs, downloads, registers or writes, it asks about first.

OpenClaw gets the same tools from the OpenClaw plugin instead, set up with its own wizard, openclaw skyrim setup; setup says so when it finds OpenClaw.

Updating: git pull && npm run setup, then restart your client. A client still running the server keeps the plugin helper in use; setup then names what to close.

By hand instead — the settings file and each client's registration, ready to copy: docs/Hosting.md §1.1.

Work on a test instance. Deploys write into the instance's mods and profile. A dedicated portable Mod Organizer on a clean game is the safe place to learn the tools — and if your instance was installed by Wabbajack, an update deletes every mod it did not install.

Configuration

See .env.example. A path may start with ~ and use $NAME or ${NAME:-default}, as in a shell, on every system; a relative one is taken from the server's folder (docs/Hosting.md §1.1).

Documentation

The tools themselves — with their router, behaviour guide, skills and vocabulary — are skyrim-modding-tools-core, which this server and its OpenClaw plugin both serve. The core can also be used on its own, from your own program.

The guides are served to clients too: ask the running server with readServerGuide.

Development

npm run build:helper   # the core's plugin helper, built in its folder
npm run build          # tsc -> dist/
npm test               # vitest, fully offline: no game, no helper needed
npx tsc --noEmit       # type check only
npm run docs:tools     # regenerate docs/Tool-Reference.md after changing a tool (needs a build)
npm run smoke          # the built server over real stdio

License and thanks

GPL-3.0 — see LICENSE — as Mutagen, the plugin engine, is GPL-3.0. The crash rules are Phostwood's Skyrim Crash Log Analyzer's, ported in the core. Copyright © 2026 Andreas Breit; co-authored with Claude (Anthropic).