mystic-stars/axolotl

Axolotl Launcher is a free, cross platform desktop application for launching Minecraft, the video game, on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is built by a team called Mystic Stars as a downstream version of the open source Modrinth launcher project, focused specifically on polishing the desktop app experience, and it works as an independent client of Modrinth's public API rather than an official Modrinth product. The launcher lets you manage Minecraft game instances, modpacks, individual mods, resource packs, and shader packs, and supports logging in with either a Microsoft account or an offline account. It keeps track of instance screenshots, offline player skins, and connections to game servers, lets you customize the app's accent color and background image, and includes a full Simplified Chinese interface while still supporting other languages. Installed copies check GitHub for new releases automatically and install signed updates once their signature is verified. Ready made installers are available for Windows as an NSIS installer, for macOS as a universal disk image covering both Intel and Apple Silicon chips, and for Linux as an AppImage, a Debian package, or an RPM package, and Arch Linux users can also install it through the Arch User Repository in either a source built or precompiled form. For local development the project needs a specific Node.js version pinned in the repository, the pnpm package manager, a specific Rust toolchain version also pinned in the repository, and the additional system dependencies that the Tauri desktop framework requires. New releases are built automatically by a GitHub Actions workflow whenever a properly formatted version tag is pushed, which builds installers on Windows, macOS, and Linux runners, signs the update package with a private key stored as a repository secret, and publishes the release once everything checks out. The app connects, depending on what you use, to Microsoft's and Minecraft's own login services, the Modrinth API, Minecraft's content delivery services, and whatever third party download addresses any content you install declares, and the project notes it has turned off private service features from the original Modrinth codebase. The desktop packages are licensed under GPL-3.0, with full license text available in the repository.