palauncher

pl is an interactive terminal Minecraft launcher that manages its own storage and uses portablemc as the backend engine for downloading, authenticating, and launching Minecraft.

It does not hand work off to Prism Launcher, MultiMC, or Mojang's desktop launcher.

What it does

• creates and stores instances under its own app directory
• supports vanilla, fabric, and forge instance definitions
• manages offline accounts and Microsoft accounts
• downloads versions, libraries, assets, and Java runtime through the backend
• launches instances from the terminal UI
• manages mods for Fabric/Forge instances through Modrinth search/install/update/remove flows

Storage layout

By default everything lives under:

~/.local/share/palauncher/
├── backend/
│   ├── auth/
│   └── main/
├── instances/
│   └── <instance-name>/
│       ├── game/
│       └── instance.json
└── state.json

You can override the root with PALAUNCHER_HOME.

Install

With npm:

npm install -g @palethea/palauncher

This installs a Node wrapper that bootstraps an isolated Python runtime inside the npm package. Requirements:

• python3 on PATH
• Python venv support

From source:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate.fish
python3 -m pip install -e .

Usage

Run:

pl

Main flows:

• Accounts menu for Microsoft login or offline accounts
• Create instance for vanilla/fabric/forge definitions
• Install or update instance to force backend preparation
• Launch instance to run the game
• Mods menu to search, install, update, remove, and open the mods folder

Direct commands

These remain available:

pl path
pl accounts
pl login [email protected] --set-default
pl launch <instance-name>
pl launch <instance-name> --dry-run
pl open-mods <instance-name>

Current limits

• Forge support is driven through backend version specifiers such as latest, recommended, or a full Forge version string.
• Microsoft login is delegated to the backend auth flow and stored inside the app's own auth directory.
• This app currently targets terminal-driven workflows, not a graphical UI.
• Mod management currently targets Modrinth-hosted mods. Update checks for non-Modrinth jars may not resolve.
• The npm release currently targets Linux and macOS. Windows packaging is not wired up yet.