Development Tools

This page contains a list of tools that are useful for developing games and mods for Minetest.

General Lua Tools

• luacheck: Lua linter and static code analyser (see also the chapter in rubenwardy's modding book)
• busted: Lua unit testing framework (see also the chapter in rubenwardy's modding book)
• Lua pattern viewer: A site like Regexr but for visualising and working with Lua patterns.

Debugging/profiling

• debug: Minetest mod library that offers more debugging capabilities.
• LuaJIT Profiler: Minetest mod that allows you to profile mods using LuaJIT's built-in profiler and Flamegraph.

Schematics

• Schematic Editor: Minetest mod that allows you to import, edit and export schematics straight within Minetest.
• MTS Editor: Standalone program to view and edit Minetest schematics, but it supports other file formats (e.g. Minecraft schematics) as well.
• Lua2Mts: Minetest mod to convert .lua schematics to .mts schematics.

Perlin Noise

• Perlin Explorer: Minetest mod that allows you to experiment with all sorts of perlin noise.

3D models

• Blender: Essential for making animated models in Minetest, see Using Blender.
• Blockbench: Useful for making static voxel models for Minetest.
• NodeBoxEditor: External program to make nodebox models for Minetest.

Formspecs

• formspec_editor: Minetest game that allows you to write formspecs and preview them instantly within Minetest.
• Minetest Formspec Editor: WYSIWYG online formspec editor

Translation

• mod_translation_updater: Python script to create and update mod translation files (*.tr)
• minetest_translation_tools: Additional Python scripts for maintaining Minetest mod translations