A small, fast addon manager for World of Warcraft: Forever.
Download the latest release for Windows 10/11. Two flavours, same app:
AddonForge-Setup-…exe: installs to your user folder with a Start menu shortcut and an uninstaller. No admin rights needed.AddonForge-v…exe: portable, run it from anywhere, nothing installed.
Either one updates itself when a new build is out. The Windows files are not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may show an unknown-publisher warning. A Defender malware detection is a separate issue: if Defender blocks a file, report the build number and detection name; do not disable antivirus or add an exclusion. If AddonForge disappears after an update, the previous version is kept for one more launch (installed copy: addonforge.exe.old in %LOCALAPPDATA%\AddonForge; portable: the old file next to it), or reinstall from the releases page. Your addons and settings are not affected.
- Light. A single exe on top of the WebView2 that Windows already has. No bundled browser.
- Private. No account, no ads, no analytics, no server of ours in the loop. The app talks only to the sites addons are published on (GitHub, Wago, WoWInterface, TukUI, CurseForge), plus this project's GitHub repo for the catalogue and updates. The full list is under Privacy.
- Honest. If an addon's author only allows downloads through CurseForge's own app, AddonForge says so and gives you the link instead of pretending.
The app reads your Interface\AddOns folder and each addon's .toc file. Authors put their Wago / WoWInterface / CurseForge ids in there, and the BigWigs packager most authors use publishes a release.json with every GitHub release, so matching what you have to where it came from is mostly reading text files.
On top of that there is a catalogue: catalog/forever.json. It is a pointer list, not a host. Each entry says where the author publishes releases; downloads always come straight from there. Anyone can add an addon with a pull request.
- Starter packs for people new to addons: six hand-picked sets (a good start, levelling, dungeons and raids, quality of life, bags, chat) with one-click install, plus a plain-English guide to what addons are, where they live and how to turn them on.
- Click any addon to read about it: description, download count, last update, the first screenshot and text from its README (fetched through GitHub, cached for a day).
- Sort the catalogue by name, most downloaded or recently updated. Download totals come from a daily GitHub Action that sums each author's release downloads into
catalog/stats.json. - Finds your WoW: Forever install and lists every addon in it, grouped properly (BigWigs and its twelve zone folders are one row).
- Checks for updates in parallel, straight from where each author publishes.
- Installs from the catalogue, from any GitHub repo you paste in, or from a CurseForge search covering every Forever addon they list.
- Tells you when an addon is missing a required dependency, with a one-click install if the catalogue knows it.
- Pin an addon to hold it at its current version. Ignore one to hide it.
- Optional pre-release toggle for authors who only ship Forever builds as betas.
- Export your addon list to a small file, import it on another PC or send it to a friend.
- Refuses any zip containing a known executable or script type, or a file that starts like a Windows or macOS program or a script. Addons are Lua, XML and media, and AddonForge never runs anything from a zip.
- Updates itself: a banner appears when a new build is out, one click swaps the exe.
- "Report a problem" builds a diagnostics report and opens a GitHub issue form or an email with it filled in. The GitHub form gets the report in its URL, so GitHub receives the text when the page opens, though nothing is posted until you submit. Email leaves when you press send. "Copy diagnostics" shows the report without sending anything.
- Keeps a small local log next to its settings file, never uploaded.
Honest version: AddonForge is designed, tested and decided by one person with a design background, and most of the code is written with Claude (Anthropic's AI). Every choice about what it does and doesn't do (no accounts, no ads, no telemetry, no executables, only the AddOns folder) is the owner's, every build is tested on a real Forever install before release, and the tests run on every push. The whole thing is open source under the MIT licence precisely so you don't have to take any of that on trust: read it, run it, or don't. Bug reports and pull requests from people who read Rust are especially welcome.
| Source | Key needed? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub releases | No | Preferred. Uses the packager's release.json when present. |
| Wago Addons | Link only | Wago gives updater keys to its Patreon supporters only, so AddonForge no longer installs from Wago. Entries that live only there link to their Wago page. |
| WoWInterface | No | Public JSON API. |
| TukUI | No | ElvUI / Tukui. |
| CurseForge | Built in | Search all Forever addons on CurseForge and install the ones whose authors allow third-party downloads (about seven in ten of the popular ones). The API key ships inside release builds and is only ever sent to api.curseforge.com. API responses aren't cached on disk; the only CurseForge data AddonForge keeps is the project id and version name of what you installed, in its settings and log. Opted-out addons are link only. |
Needs Rust (rustup), the MSVC build tools and Node.
npm install
npm run dev # run with hot reload of the UI folder
npm run build # portable exe in src-tauri/target/release/
The original ember-and-anvil app icon lives in icon.svg. Run
powershell -File scripts/make-icons.ps1 after editing it to refresh the header
and packaged desktop icons, then rebuild the app. The Windows executable and
installer both embed src-tauri/icons/icon.ico.
AddonForge also runs on macOS, built from source (no Mac release yet).
WoW on macOS lives in /Applications/World of Warcraft; the app looks there and
in ~/Applications. Anywhere else (e.g. an external drive): pick the folder in Settings.
Install the Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install), Rust and Node, then:
npm install
npx tauri build --bundles app # src-tauri/target/release/bundle/macos/AddonForge.app
The app isn't signed, so the first launch needs right-click → Open. Settings
and the log live in ~/Library/Application Support/AddonForge. When a new
version is out, the update button opens the releases page instead of swapping
the exe.
Want an addon listed? See CONTRIBUTING.md: one JSON entry and a pull request, validated automatically. Or open an "Add an addon" issue and we'll do it.
The Windows files do not currently have a code-signing certificate. SignPath Foundation declined the initial application and invited a later reapplication as the project gains recognition.
From build 27, AddonForge verifies a project signature on its update manifest and checks the downloaded executable against the manifest's SHA-256 checksum. This protects update authenticity and integrity; it is separate from Windows publisher signing.
Roles
- Authors, reviewers and approvers: Project maintainer (sole maintainer).
- Every signing request is approved by the maintainer before release.
- Changes from outside contributors are reviewed by the maintainer before they are merged.
Privacy AddonForge does not collect or send personal data and has no telemetry, accounts or analytics. It contacts only these hosts, and only to check versions, read addon details and download addons:
- github.com, api.github.com, raw.githubusercontent.com and GitHub's release download hosts: the addon catalogue, AddonForge's own updates, and GitHub-hosted addons (addon details, README images and author avatars).
- api.curseforge.com and edge.forgecdn.net: CurseForge addon lookups and downloads (only for addons whose authors allow third-party downloads).
- api.mmoui.com: WoWInterface addon lookups and the download hosts it returns.
- api.tukui.org: TukUI addon lookups and the download hosts it returns.
- media.forgecdn.net, wago.io hosts, www.wowinterface.com and cdn-wow.mmoui.com: only for the preview image, when the first screenshot in a GitHub-hosted addon's README lives there.
Every request is HTTPS, and a site can redirect it to another host (GitHub's downloads do). At launch the app reads the catalogue, download totals and its own update manifest from this repo, then checks your installed addons for updates; there's no setting to turn that off.
These requests reveal your IP address, your AddonForge version (in the User-Agent) and the addon names or IDs being checked, as with any web request. GitHub counts downloads of release files, so the update manifest's counter gives the maintainer a rough, anonymous count of launches. The CurseForge API key is sent only to api.curseforge.com.
Scope of signing Only AddonForge's own release builds are signed, and only from source in this repository. Addons installed through AddonForge are made by their own authors and are not signed by this project.
Bugs and ideas: use Report a problem in the app's Settings tab (it fills in the diagnostics), open an issue, or email PocketForgeStudios@proton.me. Questions, requests and chat: the Pocket Forge Studios Discord, channel #addonforge. If AddonForge saves you some hassle, a tip on Ko-fi keeps the lights on. No pressure.
Made by Pocket Forge Studios. MIT licensed, see LICENSE.
AddonForge is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to CurseForge, Overwolf, Blizzard Entertainment, Wago, WoWInterface or TukUI. World of Warcraft is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment.