Getting started

esx is all-in-one command line tooling for Creation Kit modding. One program edits plugins, packs archives, edits meshes and materials, builds behavior graphs and checks a release. Every command can return JSON for AI agents and scripts, and all errors have stable codes.

Find your game

esx detects Steam installs and Proton prefixes. Run this command to see the paths it finds:

esx game detect

To set a path yourself, use --game-path or --data. You can also set ESX_GAME and ESX_DATA as environment variables. esx also reads BETHKIT_GAME and BETHKIT_DATA when the ESX_ variables are not set.

First commands

Show the header, masters and record counts of a plugin:

esx plugin info MyMod.esp

Check every record for errors:

esx plugin check MyMod.esp

Show one record as a tree:

esx record show MyMod.esp edid:MyKeyword

Output

On a terminal, esx prints plain text. When you pipe the output, esx prints JSON. Use --format json to force JSON. See Output and errors.

Safe edits

Commands that change a plugin accept --dry-run. This option runs the change and does not save the file. Commands that save a plugin make a backup first. Use -o to write to a different file.