GDK Version Archiver

NOTICE: THIS TOOL DOES NOT HELP YOU PIRATE THE GAME. YOU MUST OWN A LEGITIMATE COPY OF MINECRAFT TO USE THIS TOOL.

GDK Version Archiver is a CLI tool designed to help you archive and manage Minecraft GDK installations on Windows. It captures your current installations as "mirrors" and lets you manage them using simple tags, making version switching fast and effortless.

Features

• Tagging System: Use tags like current or beta to manage and switch between different game versions.
• Protected File Handling: Automatically handles and copies encrypted files via pwsh decryption commands.
• Concurrent Copying: Used to copy multiple files at once

Prerequisites

• Windows OS (10 or later)
• PowerShell (Pre-installed on Windows)
• Bun Runtime (Recommended)

Note: While you can install this package using any preferred package manager (like npm, yarn, or pnpm), Bun is recommended for the best performance and compatibility. Also bun is already required to run this tool it self, See the Why Bun? section below.

Installation

1. Install Bun

If you don't have Bun installed, download and install it from bun.sh/docs/installation.

2. Install the Package Globally

Open PowerShell or your command prompt and run:

bun install -g gdk-version-archiver

Important: PATH Environment Variable

If you install the package globally, Bun needs to be in your system's PATH to run the commands directly.

1. To verify Bun is accessible, run: bun --version
2. If your terminal cannot find the gdkva command after installation, you may need to add Bun's global bin directory to your Windows PATH.

Usage

Once installed, you can interact with the tool using the gdkva command.

(If you are having PATH issues, you can alternatively invoke the package directly using Bun by typing bunx gdkva <command> instead of gdkva <command>).

Archive your current version

Capture your current Minecraft GDK installation. By default, this saves as current.

gdkva archive

Options:

• --tag <name>: Save the archive with a custom tag.
• --concurrency <n>: Number of simultaneous file copies (default is 10).
• --force: Overwrite the tag if it already exists.

Example:

gdkva archive --tag *windowsbeta* --concurrency 15

List archived versions

See all of your stored versions and their assigned tags:

gdkva list

Run a specific version

Launch an archived version by referencing its tag:

gdkva run --tag beta

Where Your Data Is Stored

By default, all archives and tags are safely stored in your AppData folder: %APPDATA%\ConMaster.BedrockArchiver\clients\

• mirrors/ — Contains the full copies of your GDK installations.
• tags/ — Contains shortcuts pointing to your specific mirrors.

Performance Notes

• Why does archiving take a while? The tool must query Windows for package information via PowerShell. The actual copy speed depends entirely on your hard drive's write speed, (It's lot of files!!!)
• The tool looks stuck: Don't panic! To keep the terminal clean, the tool only shows directory names as it works, not individual file names. If a directory contains hundreds of files, it might temporarily look frozen while copying. This is totally normal.

Why Bun?

I rely heavily on Bun's simplified process APIs to handle the archiving and execution logic under the hood. Since this tool was originally built for my own personal workflow, I chose the runtime that allowed for the most efficient development.

I don't currently have the resources to fully support the standard Node.js runtime, but contributions and PRs are open if anyone in the community wants to help expand compatibility!