Introduction and Overview

DFHack is a Dwarf Fortress memory access library, distributed with a wide variety of useful scripts and plugins.

The project is currently hosted on GitHub, and can be downloaded from the releases page - see Installing DFHack for installation instructions. This is also where the DFHack bug tracker is hosted.

All new releases are announced in the Bay12 forums thread, which is also a good place for discussion and questions.

For users, DFHack provides a significant suite of bugfixes and interface enhancements by default, and more can be enabled. There are also many tools (such as workflow or autodump) which can make life easier. You can even add third-party scripts and plugins to do almost anything!

For modders, DFHack makes many things possible. Custom reactions, new interactions, magic creature abilities, and more can be set through Scripts for Modders and custom raws. Non-standard DFHack scripts and inits can be stored in the raw directory, making raws or saves fully self-contained for distribution - or for coexistence in a single DF install, even with incompatible components.

For developers, DFHack unites the various ways tools access DF memory and allows easier development of new tools. As an open-source project under various open-source licences, contributions are welcome.

Getting started

See Installing DFHack for details on installing DFHack.

Once DFHack is installed, it extends DF with a console that can be used to run commands. On Windows, this console will open automatically when DF is started. On Linux and macOS, you will need to run the dfhack script from a terminal (instead of the df script included with DF), and that terminal will be used by the DFHack console.

  • Basic interaction with DFHack involves entering commands into the console. To learn what commands are available, you can keep reading this documentation or skip ahead and use the ls and help commands.
  • Another way to interact with DFHack is to set in-game keybindings for certain commands. Many of the newer and user-friendly tools are designed to be used this way.
  • Commands can also run at startup via init files, on in batches at other times with the script command.
  • Finally, some commands are persistent once enabled, and will sit in the background managing or changing some aspect of the game if you enable them.

Troubleshooting

Don’t panic! Even if you need this section, it’ll be OK :)

If something goes wrong, check the log files in DF’s folder (stderr.log and stdout.log). Looking at these might help you - or someone else - solve the problem. Take screenshots of any weird error messages, and take notes on what you did to cause them.

If the search function in this documentation isn’t enough and the DF Wiki hasn’t helped, try asking in: