Chef Shared Loader
One Lua loader for every Helldivers 2 mod: side by side, crash-guarded and locked down, with an in-game options menu and a performance monitor.
Chef Shared Loader runs Lua mods on the current game build (Lua 5.1). Install it once, and every mod made for it runs next to the others, each in its own space, with no fight over the game's boot script. It's what my script mods (Treasure Radar first) run on, and it's open to every mod author.
Load order: put Chef Shared Loader last, so it deploys after every other mod (in a mod manager that lists the highest priority at the top, that means first). Another mod deployed after it that replaces the game's boot script takes its place, and then no Chef Shared Loader mod runs.
Mods that need memory access won't work. Since the October 20, 2026 update (7.2.0), Helldivers 2 runs plain Lua 5.1 instead of LuaJIT: there's no ffi any more, so no Lua mod can read or write game memory. Script mods built on memory access (older Bingus Shared Loader addons, for example) won't run here and have to be rebuilt for the new Lua; no loader can bring that back.
Features
Install / update
Uninstall
Disable it in your mod manager, then Purge and Deploy (mods that need it stop working). Its files in %APPDATA%\Arrowhead\Helldivers2 (chef_loader.log, chef_loader_settings.txt, chef_loader_state.txt, chef_loader_trace.txt) can be deleted.
Compatibility
What a Lua mod needs to run on Chef Shared Loader
Troubleshooting
Credits
Source code
Source, the guide for mod makers and every release are on GitHub: Th3chef/Chef-Shared-Loader
One Lua loader for every Helldivers 2 mod: side by side, crash-guarded and locked down, with an in-game options menu and a performance monitor.
Chef Shared Loader runs Lua mods on the current game build (Lua 5.1). Install it once, and every mod made for it runs next to the others, each in its own space, with no fight over the game's boot script. It's what my script mods (Treasure Radar first) run on, and it's open to every mod author.
Load order: put Chef Shared Loader last, so it deploys after every other mod (in a mod manager that lists the highest priority at the top, that means first). Another mod deployed after it that replaces the game's boot script takes its place, and then no Chef Shared Loader mod runs.
Mods that need memory access won't work. Since the October 20, 2026 update (7.2.0), Helldivers 2 runs plain Lua 5.1 instead of LuaJIT: there's no ffi any more, so no Lua mod can read or write game memory. Script mods built on memory access (older Bingus Shared Loader addons, for example) won't run here and have to be rebuilt for the new Lua; no loader can bring that back.
Features
- Every mod side by side: it finds every Chef Shared Loader mod in your installed mods and runs each in its own space. Mods that still replace the game's boot script themselves run too, when Chef Shared Loader is deployed last.
- Options menu (F9): one menu for every mod's settings and key bindings, saved between launches. It opens on the list of mods in alphabetical order; Enter opens a mod's options, < Back (or Backspace) goes back, Delete puts a setting's default back, Escape or F9 closes it, and / searches across every mod.
- Performance monitor: turn it on in the menu (Chef Shared Loader > Performance monitor) for a panel with your frame time and each mod's milliseconds a frame, share of the frame and worst moment, once a second. Off, it costs nothing.
- Crash guard: if the game ever crashes inside a mod, the next launch skips that call or switches that mod off, says so on screen, and names it in the log, instead of crashing again.
- Locked down: mods can't start programs, load native code or compiled Lua, or touch files outside the game's own folders.
- Light: about a millisecond at start-up, next to nothing a frame while idle.
- For mod authors: a documented API (shared settings, events, menus, key bindings, safe engine calls, timers, spawning with clean-up and more). See docs/MODDING.md on GitHub.
Install / update
- Mod manager (Arsenal / HD2 Mod Manager): add Chef-Shared-Loader-1.0.0.zip and enable it.
- Move it to the end of your load order, so it deploys after every other mod (keep it there when you add mods later).
- Purge and Deploy.
- Install the mods that need it (for example Treasure Radar 0.6.0 or newer) the usual way.
- Treasure Radar 0.5.1 or older carried its own copy of the loader: update it to 0.6.0.
Uninstall
Disable it in your mod manager, then Purge and Deploy (mods that need it stop working). Its files in %APPDATA%\Arrowhead\Helldivers2 (chef_loader.log, chef_loader_settings.txt, chef_loader_state.txt, chef_loader_trace.txt) can be deleted.
Compatibility
- Runs every Chef Shared Loader mod. A mod that replaces the game's boot script itself runs too when Chef Shared Loader is deployed after it; another mod loader's boot script isn't run (it would start every mod twice) and the log and the screen say so.
- Only you see its menu and monitor; nobody else needs it, except for the mods they use themselves.
- Lua mods that read or write game memory (ffi, LuaJIT-only code) don't work on the current game, with this loader or any other.
- Made and tested on the October 2026 game version (the Lua 5.1 build).
What a Lua mod needs to run on Chef Shared Loader
- A header as its very first line: -- HD2-Addon: mods/yourname/modname for a mod that returns a table with update(dt) and shutdown(), or -- HD2-Boot: mods/yourname/modname for a boot-style script with global init, update, render and shutdown. The names use letters, digits, _ and -. A Lua file without a header isn't started.
- Plain Lua 5.1 source text: no LuaJIT bytecode, no ffi, no jit and no goto. The loader puts back bit, table.new, table.clear and table.unpack.
- No memory access: the game's script API (stingray, Unit, World ...) works as usual, but a mod can't read or write game memory, start programs, load native code, or touch files outside the game's own folders.
- Packed as a Lua resource in a patch archive and installed with a mod manager like any other mod (tools/pack_addon.py on GitHub builds an Arsenal-ready zip). Its page should say it needs Chef Shared Loader 1.0.0 or newer.
- Mods made for Bingus Shared Loader or Mod Options Menu: add the header, and return update(dt) from the mod's table instead of setting _G.update. Their CowboyBingusModLoader and ModOptionsMenu calls keep working through the loader's stand-ins.
- Mods that replace the game's boot script: make the first line the HD2-Boot header and give the resource any name but boot.
Troubleshooting
- A mod doesn't run: check that Chef Shared Loader is enabled, that it's last in your load order (after every other mod), and that you Purged and Deployed. chef_loader.log says which mods it found and started.
- Attach the log to a bug report: chef_loader.log in %APPDATA%\Arrowhead\Helldivers2 (type that into the File Explorer address bar and press Enter). It shows that it started, which mods it found, any Lua errors and its timings.
Credits
- Fonts in the art: Anton, Barlow Condensed and JetBrains Mono (SIL Open Font License).
Source code
Source, the guide for mod makers and every release are on GitHub: Th3chef/Chef-Shared-Loader
