The all-in-one desktop toolkit for ARK: Survival Evolved.
35+ tools for configs, visuals, automation and game knowledge — in one fast, themeable Windows app.
RazorReaper bundles the entire day-to-day ARK workflow into a single desktop app: INI tuning, visual tweaks, custom skies and loading screens, input automation, breeding intel, map knowledge and system utilities — built around how the game is actually played, not around launcher clutter.
Steam ARK: Survival Evolved only. Microsoft Store builds, ARK: Survival Ascended, console and other platforms are not supported.
- One app, 35+ tools — organized into searchable sections with instant global search (
Ctrl+K) - Self-contained installer — bundles the .NET runtime; download, install, play (no prerequisites)
- Updates on your schedule — new versions download silently in the background; the restart that installs them is yours to trigger, from the sidebar or the tray
- Fully themeable — recolor the entire app with a built-in accent color picker
- Tray-native — minimizes to the system tray and stays out of your way while you play
- Discord Rich Presence — shows the tool you're using as your Discord activity (optional)
- Session HUD — click-through in-game overlay with clock, session timer, server info and alerts
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Home | Dashboard with system info, announcements, accent theming and game path handling |
| Server | Connect to and manage ARK servers from one panel |
| Game | Launch, control and monitor the ARK game process |
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| INI Changer | Three-column INI workspace with preset gallery, editing, import/export |
| INI Builder | One-click Game.ini / GameUserSettings.ini presets with automatic backups |
| Vision Tools | TEK camera behavior, scope visibility and FOV in one place |
| Gamma | System-wide screen gamma on a hotkey or Logitech G HUB mouse button |
| Launch Options | ARK startup flags with their trade-offs explained |
| Fonts | In-game font switching with presets |
| Pixel Glitch | Texture file utilities with backup and revert support |
| Paintings | MyPaintings workflow and preset handling |
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sky Changer | Replace the in-game sky with an image or solid color by patching local sky files |
| Loading Screen | Swap ARK's startup and loading videos for your own — fully reversible |
| Char Manager | Manage the appearance presets on ARK's character-creation screen |
| Stretched Res | Switch to a stretched resolution safely, with 15-second auto-revert |
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Scripts | Automation hub — start, stop and configure ARK automation scripts |
| Global Hotkeys | Every script's start/stop hotkey, visible and editable at a glance |
| Auto Clicker | Advanced mouse-click automation |
| Macros | Record, replay and run premade input macros |
| Fed Suit | Automated transmitter slot transfers for the Federation Suit grind |
| Auto Antidote | Watches the HUD and refreshes your antidote automatically |
| HUD Overlay | Click-through overlay: clock, session timer, server info, tool status, alerts |
| Notifier | Live in-game alerts for rare dinos, resources and OSD events |
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mutagen Prices | Gen2 creature mutagen values, searchable by name |
| Line List | Track breeding lines and build WTS/WTB trade posts |
| OC BPs | Genesis 2 mission rewards for overcapped blueprints |
| Bosses | Boss and mini-boss tribute requirements, sorted by map |
| TP Locations | Teleport-worthy spots per map with copyable setplayerpos commands |
| Underwater Drops | Underwater loot crates by coordinate, searchable by map and crate type |
| Map Mods | Modded-map spots — caves, landmarks, obelisks, POIs — with coordinates and notes |
| Steam Mods | Installed workshop mods with fast search and latest-install filtering |
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Building | Foundation, wall, layout and meta build patterns with fullscreen lightbox |
| Desync | Freeze your character server-side by blocking ARK's outbound traffic — always auto-reverting |
| File Modifier | Remove or replace individual ARK files and clear redundant cooked data to reclaim disk space |
| Crosshair | Always-on-top crosshair overlay with editor, presets, animations and image import |
| Macro / AHK | Crafting macro and AHK references, videos and scripts |
| Compact ARK | Shrink the ARK install with transparent NTFS compression |
Plus Troubleshoot, Feedback and Credits pages built in.
- Windows 10 or Windows 11 (x64)
- Steam ARK: Survival Evolved
- Grab the latest release
- Download
RazorReaper-Setup.exefrom the release assets - Run the installer and launch RazorReaper
The installer is fully self-contained — the .NET runtime ships inside, so there is nothing else to install.
RazorReaper checks for updates on launch and every 30 minutes while it is open, and downloads a new version silently in the background — there is nothing to click and nothing to wait for.
Installing is the part you control. Once the download has finished and been verified, the update sits ready and the bell in the sidebar keeps a dot. From there, pick whichever suits you:
- Restart & update to vX in the What's new & inbox view (click the bell), or
- Restart & update (vX) in the tray menu, or
- nothing at all — the next time you start RazorReaper, the waiting update is applied before anything else runs.
Two rules never bend. The app will not restart itself while ARK or one of your macros is running: it says so and stays ready until you are done. And a release the manifest marks mandatory applies on its own as soon as that gate is clear — it does not wait for the button.
Because RazorReaper installs into Program Files, Windows shows a UAC prompt while an update is applied. The guarantee is narrower than "never during a session", so here it is exactly: RazorReaper will not restart while ARK or a macro is running. A mandatory release applies as soon as that gate is clear, whatever else you are doing. Every other update waits for you to press Restart & update, or for the next start.
If an update was applied and the installer failed, RazorReaper says so at the next start — in a warning and in the What's new & inbox view — and leaves the installer staged for one retry. That retry is yours to ask for: the same Restart & update button. It is not tried again on its own.
Releases & updates below describes the same thing from the other side: how a version is cut, and how your install hears about it.
- The version bump lands on
masterfirst — the six strings below, in one commit. build-installer.ymlis dispatched with that version. Awindows-latestrunner verifies the commit carries it, buildsRelease, packagesinstaller/RazorReaper.isswith Inno Setup into a singleRazorReaper-Setup.exe(~73 MB, self-contained, installs to{autopf}i.e. Program Files, admin elevation via Inno's defaultPrivilegesRequired=admin), optionally signs it, and attaches it to a draft GitHub Release. It never publishes.- Publishing that draft is a deliberate, confirmed click in RR-Admin-Panel, which also writes
update.xmlonmaster— and can repoint it at an older tag to roll back.update-manifest.ymlno longer runs on a release; it survives as a manualworkflow_dispatchfallback. discord-release.ymlposts the push/release to the project's Discord webhooks; a release post links the public notes page atdl.razorreaper.app/release-notes/<tag>.
update.xml is only ever bumped by publishing a release — not by a plain version-bump commit. A version bump to the app without a published GitHub release intentionally leaves update.xml (and therefore what clients are offered) pointing at the last released version.
The client fetches the manifest from the Cloudflare Worker (https://backend.rr-admin-panel.workers.dev/update/update.xml) run in RR-Admin-Panel's backend-worker, which proxies GitHub with a server-side token and rewrites <url> to its own /update/download redirect. If the worker is unreachable, the client falls back to reading update.xml straight from raw.githubusercontent.com — which only works while this repo is public. <changelog> is not rewritten by the worker and always points at a github.com/.../releases/tag/... URL.
The client side is the flow described under Updating, and it lives in AutoUpdateManager (when a staged installer may run is UpdateApplyPolicy). A check at startup and every 30 minutes, plus Check again in the What's new & inbox view. An update downloads to %TEMP%\RazorReaperUpdate\ and is staged there: verified against its byte count, kept across sessions, and swept only when it is partial, superseded, or older than 14 days.
Applying it means handing off to a small relaunch script that waits for this process to exit, runs the installer with /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /NORESTART, writes a marker file if the installer returns a non-zero exit code, and relaunches. The hand-off happens when the user asks for it (the button or the tray item), at the next start, or on its own for a release update.xml marks <mandatory> — and in no case while ARK or a macro is running.
A non-zero exit code is read from that marker at the next start: it is reported to the user and to telemetry, the installer stays staged for one retry the user has to ask for, and a second failure on the same version discards it.
A release bumps six version strings in lockstep, all enforced by ReleaseReadinessTests:
RazorReaper/RazorReaper.csproj:ApplicationDisplayVersion,ApplicationVersion(build number),AssemblyVersion,FileVersion,Versioninstaller/RazorReaper.iss:MyAppVersion
See docs/release-process.md for the full release checklist.
git clone https://github.com/CedrickGD/RazorReaper.git
cd RazorReaper
dotnet build RazorReaper.sln
dotnet run --project RazorReaper/RazorReaper.csproj -f net10.0-windows10.0.19041.0Prerequisites: Windows 10/11, .NET SDK 10.0 (x64), Visual Studio 2022 with the .NET MAUI workload.
- GammaHotkey — the standalone tray version of RazorReaper's Gamma tool (any GPU, G HUB Lua export)
- Ark-ASE-INI-Files — a public archive of ARK: Survival Evolved INI configs
- Some tools expect a valid ARK install path and will guide you to set one
- Actions that touch game files create backups and are designed to be reversible
- Telemetry and data handling: see PRIVACY.md
Proprietary — see LICENSE.txt. © 2026 Cedrick Grabe. All rights reserved.
RazorReaper is an independent community tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Studio Wildcard or Snail Games.