PANDA Mod Manager

Modern mod manager for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly. Built to retire Mod Organizer 2.

Status: very early development. Phase 1 (engine + basic UI) in progress. Not usable yet.

What it is

PANDA is a Tauri + Rust desktop app for installing, organizing, and sharing Anomaly mod setups. It treats your Anomaly install as immutable: mods live in a separate library and are deployed into gamedata/ via symlinks, so uninstalling is instant and clean.

What's planned (the short version)

• Symlink-based deployment. Your gamedata/ folder is never permanently modified.
• Profiles. Switch between modlists (Vanilla+QoL, Hardcore, etc.) without reinstalling anything.
• LTX 3-way merger. Resolve config-file conflicts visually, per key.
• One-file modpack sharing. Export your entire setup as a .panda file; a friend imports it and gets an identical install.
• Automated ModDB downloads. Paste a URL, PANDA fetches the archive in the background via an embedded webview. No browser opens. Works for the common case; falls back to a one-click manual flow when sites need user interaction (Mega, Drive).
• Community mod index. A separate public repo of curated mod metadata. PANDA contributes back automatically when you install something new.

For the full design, see docs/PLAN.md.

Repository layout

crates/
  panda-core/      Types, manifest, library/profile state
  panda-deploy/    Symlink deployment engine
  panda-archive/   Zip/7z/rar extraction + structure detection
  panda-ltx/       LTX parser and 3-way merger (planned)
src-tauri/         Tauri shell (Rust side)
ui/                Svelte frontend
docs/              Design docs

Building

Requires Rust 1.80+, Node 20+, and (for cargo tauri dev) the Tauri prerequisites for your platform: https://tauri.app/start/prerequisites/.

# Install JS deps
cd ui && npm install && cd ..

# Run the headless Rust tests
cargo test --workspace --exclude panda-mod-manager

# Run the desktop app in dev mode
npm --prefix ui run tauri dev

The primary target is Windows. Linux/macOS builds may work for development but are not supported.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.