| description | Downloaded and prepared my IDE to do some scripting, what now? |
|---|
Created: Apr 02 2024 by mana vortex
Last documented edit: Jul 21 2026 by Zhincore
Simply open your IDE and create an empty project.
It is discouraged to develop directly in the game's folder, you should create your projects outside of the game, as usual for any language. (But no one’s stopping you for experiments)
Now simply create a text file with the .reds extension, for example MyMod.reds. Then you're ready to code!
In REDscript we are usually injecting code using hook annotations. There is no "main" function, however, you can use scriptable classes to run your code, too.
{% code title="Example of basic hooking:" overflow="wrap" %}
@wrapMethod(DamageSystem)
private func ProcessLocalizedDamage(hitEvent: ref<gameHitEvent>) {
Log("Yay, my custom code!");
wrappedMethod(hitEvent);
}{% endcode %}
This code wraps a method in the game's DamageSystem class, which allows us to run our code! The original method still runs thanks to the special wrappedMethod call, so we didn't break the game (yet).
If you wanna see more examples of REDscript see redscript-in-2-minutes.md:
{% content-ref url="redscript-in-2-minutes.md" %} redscript-in-2-minutes.md {% endcontent-ref %}
For starters it should be enough to copy-paste your script(s) into the Cyberpunk 2077\r6\scripts folder. You can hot-reload all scripts without restarting the game using RedHotTools:
{% content-ref url="https://app.gitbook.com/s/4gzcGtLrr90pVjAWVdTc/for-mod-creators-theory/modding-tools/redhottools/rht-hot-reload" %} RHT: Hot Reload {% endcontent-ref %}
When your mod grows, you probably want to give it more structure, have proper folders in your project, maybe add a Red4Ext plugin or a CET integration.
Before it all falls down on your head, consider using the red-cli tool which can not only bundle all your scripts together but also install them for you while you develop:
{% embed url="https://github.com/rayshader/cp2077-red-cli" %}
Depends on what you want to do!
You probably want to explore more of what REDscript does:
{% content-ref url="https://app.gitbook.com/s/-McniwB8YOK2HnJ7SYg_/language" %} Language Reference {% endcontent-ref %}
If you want to interact with the game, you mostly want to hook up:
{% content-ref url="../how-to-create-a-hook/" %} how-to-create-a-hook {% endcontent-ref %}
Also checkout notable libraries, maybe they can help you towards your goal:
{% content-ref url="../../references-and-examples/libraries.md" %} libraries.md {% endcontent-ref %}