Elemental
Elemental is a Modern Minecraft Launcher SDK⚛
Support Matrix
| Family / Driver | Catalog | Inspect | Install | Load Installed | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Fabric-like | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Fabric | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| LegacyFabric | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Babric | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Quilt | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Forge | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| NeoForge | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| CleanroomMC | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Rift | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| LiteLoader | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Development is actively in progress. The matrix reflects the current workspace state rather than a stability guarantee. Verified anchors and current range claims live in ROADMAP.md.
Why Elemental
- It treats Minecraft distributions as real families instead of flattening everything into one fake
version.jsonmodel. Vanilla, Fabric-like loaders, direct profiled legacy-era loaders such as Rift and LiteLoader, and installer-driven ecosystems such as Forge, NeoForge, and Cleanroom all land on intentional substrates instead of collapsing into special-case flags. Storage+Layoutmake paths a typed capability, not stringly-typed launcher glue. Game roots, instances, libraries, assets, and version artifacts are resolved through explicit resource models, which keeps alternative layouts and migration work possible without hardcoding one.minecraftshape.- The instance lifecycle is explicit and product-friendly. Elemental separates catalog, inspect, install, load-installed, and launch so a launcher can discover local state, reopen prepared instances, and build launch commands without rerunning the whole install path every time.
- Runtime handling is part of the kernel, not scattered around app code. The core can validate an explicit Java executable against the required major version or resolve a compatible local runtime automatically, which matters once old and new distributions coexist in the same launcher.
- Older tweaker-era loaders do not automatically force a new kernel family. Rift and LiteLoader now run on the direct profiled
version_jsonpath, which keeps the boot surface smaller until a future target proves otherwise. - Installer-driven ecosystems are first-class. Forge, NeoForge, and now Cleanroom run on a shared installer-family flow with family-specific merge and runtime behavior, so the SDK can support legacy-derived installers without pretending they are just metadata overlays.
- The workspace is split for reuse instead of forcing one monolith:
schemafor protocol typescorefor storage, runtime, and launch primitivesinfrafor downloading and archive workdriverfor catalogs, families, and distribution logicsharedfor persisted state helpers
Workspace Layout
crates/schema: Pure protocol and serialization typescrates/core: Launcher domain logic, storage, runtime lookup, and launch primitivescrates/infra: Downloader and execution reportscrates/driver: Distribution and driver-specific logiccrates/object: Shared typed object poolcrates/shared: Versioned persisted loader, profile, and store utilitiescrates/elemental: Re-export facade cratecrates/demo: End-to-end example
Quick Start
If you just want to verify the current end-to-end example inside this repository:
The current default demo prepares and launches a Fabric instance.
Loader-specific demo entry points are also available, including cargo run -p demo -- cleanroom --help, cargo run -p demo -- rift --help, and cargo run -p demo -- liteloader --help.
The default demo settings live in crates/demo/src/main.rs.
Use The Library Crates Directly
This is the smallest end-to-end flow using the library crates directly.
Dependencies
[]
= "1"
= { = "1", = ["macros", "process", "rt-multi-thread"] }
= { = "elemental-kit", = "0.1" }
1. Fetch Catalog Data
use Result;
use ;
async
2. Prepare and Launch
If you want to launch a version that is already fully prepared on disk without downloading anything, load it from storage first and then launch it.
use Result;
use ;
// Extracting native should use multi-thread runtime to avoid blocking the async flow, but the rest of the work is single-thread-friendly so the default runtime is fine for most of the flow.
async
3. Inspect, Load, and Launch
use Result;
use ;
// Extracting native should use multi-thread runtime to avoid blocking the async flow, but the rest of the work is single-thread-friendly so the default runtime is fine for most of the flow.
async
Notes
- This example assumes you already have a compatible local Java runtime.
- Elemental now auto-selects a local runtime using the Minecraft version metadata.
- Runtime discovery uses sources such as the Windows registry,
PATH, package-manager locations, andJAVA_HOME. - The example uses offline auth on purpose so the minimal flow stays easy to run.
- If you want a complete runnable reference from this repository, crates/demo/src/main.rs is the best starting point.