.. is a tool for downloading and updating modpacks from GitHub repositories, provided they're made to work with it. It does so by creating a local repository and downloading mods listed in the repo's modpack.json file.

See copygirl/obsidian-Modpack for an example repository.

GitHub is an amazing place to host projects of all kinds!

• You can have multiple different versions of a modpack available at a time by making them different branches. For example:
  • master for the most recent stable version.
  • development for the all most recent, approved changes.
  • server for your testing server that shouldn't update all the time because of minor or irrelevant changes to the development branch.
  • Branches for possibly-not-yet-quite-ready features in development.
• It allows multiple people to easily work on a modpack simultaneously.
• Issues can be used as a TODO list, place for suggestions, bug reports and general discussions.
• Pull requests can be used as a way to allow people not part of the core team to provide changes and help with pack maintenance, while also having all the upsides of issues.
• There's also milestones, releases and a wiki.

Put the PackOPdater.exe into a fresh, Forge-enabled Minecraft instance folder. When you're first starting you'll be promted to enter a repository and select a branch. This will create a configuration file, so on successive launches you won't need to enter this information again.

Couldn't find 'PackOPdater.json', creating from scratch.
> GitHub Repository: copygirl/obsidian-Modpack
Grabbing repository branches... DONE
> Select branch: [server] (3/3)

Now, and every time you launch the updater when there's an update available, you'll have the option of downloading the latest version of the modpack. If there are any optional mods, you may select which ones you'd like to include.

> Update available, download now? [yes] no
Grabbing latest modpack info... DONE

Select optional mods:
 X  FastCraft (1.21)
    Inventory Tweaks (1.59)
    Mouse Tweaks (2.4.4)
[X] MumbleLink (4.1.1-2b3035b)
    DONE

Then the program will download the mods listed in the modpack.json.

While it is technically possible to includes mods in the GitHub repository itself instead of putting them in the modpack.json, it is highly recommended NOT to do so. Binary files do not work well with git, GitHub should not be used to host them, and it's probably against some mods' redistribution terms.

You can also run this tool as a server wrapper. This way, it will check for updates in the GitHub repository every 2 minutes. When that's the case, it will notify players of the incoming update and give them some time to log out, shut down the server gently, apply these updates, and restart the server.

To start the server wrapper, run the program with the following arguments:
PackOPdater.exe <server jar> [additional java arguments ...]
For example: PackOPdater.exe minecraftforge.jar -Xmx2G -Xms2G

A pre-release version is available on the Releases page. Note that this hasn't been tested at all yet, and some useful features might still be missing.

Should run fine on Linux using Mono 3.0 and up.