The organisation for
leaf
The LeafPZ organisation contains all the repositories for Leaf, the most powerful Project Zomboid Java modding toolchain! It is a hard fork of the well-known Fabric modding toolchain, often seen and used with Minecraft!
Caution
You should be informed about the potential risks of Java modding before installing any unofficial modding toolchain. There are safeguards that are provided such as leaf mod verification and hashing, but leaf WILL NOT stop you from loading a malicious mod from the Workshop or any other source if you allow it to do so.
It is always recommended to deny loading any mod that you do not trust. If you need help verifying the trust of a given mod, ask around for advice from people with experience. A good place to ask is in the official or unofficial Project Zomboid Discord servers.
This section details the toolchain repositories and gives a quick summary of what it does, starting from least to most user-facing. Other repositories exist which are not detailed here, of which are not important enough to list here.
- leaf - Storage site for JSON files containing important game data like version information and file hashes
leaf-filament- (NOT CURRENTLY USED) A helper Gradle plugin that yarn uses internallyleaf-yarn- (NOT CURRENTLY USED) Open mappings for the game's Java code- leaf-loom - Gradle plugin used to greatly improve the setup and environment of Leaf mod development
- leaf-example-mod - Example mod template to help you create your first Leaf mod
- leaf-loader - The mod loader that powers Leaf for both development and production
- leaf-loader-proxy - Proxy loader Java agent which sits in-between the game launcher and Java
- leaf-loader-proxy-native - Native agent required on Windows platforms (only) to fix a bug
Seriously, that is its only function due to a bug in the official game launcher! - leaf-api - Common API provided officially by Leaf to cover common Java use-cases
- leaf-installer - Platform-independent installer that guides installation of Leaf in production
The goal was to port this toolchain to Project Zomboid while keeping the familiar Fabric style which helps modders who come working from Fabric and want to mod Project Zomboid. This is, however, not the only reason why it was decided to use Fabric; there is many, such as it being already set up to work nicely with Project Zomboid as the two games share similarities.
I (aoqia) have been working on this project solo since mid to late 2024, taking a break roughly around late 2025 to early 2026 due to burnout. Please understand that I can only do so much, especially since I refuse to vibecode yet another mod loader -- as many of you have probably seen recently with the uprising in slop mods across all games.
If you need any help whatsoever with Leaf, you can discuss anything leaf-related on Discord through the official Project Zomboid Modding Community Discord using the appropriate channels. I am always active there, and you may ping me whenever you like for whatever reason, so long as you are reasonable.
You may find all the policies regarding the LeafPZ organisation and it's encompassing repositories in the org's .github repository. Particular ones to note are:
- The entire FabricMC team!
- albion
- GigaWatte
- electrisoma
- SimKDT
and everyone else who's contributed to Leaf in other ways!
