SkinLibrary

🎭 SkinLibrary

Server-side skin library for Fabric — players pick a skin from a clickable list in chat.

Drop .png files into a folder; players join with a vanilla client and type /skin. Nothing to install on their side, no web service to host, no API keys.

What it does

FabricTailor does the actual skin swapping and the MineSkin upload; SkinLibrary adds the curated library and the in-chat browser on top of it.

Features

• 🖱️ Clickable in-chat list — paged, grouped by author, with "◀ Previous / Next ▶" navigation and 🎲 Random / ↺ Original shortcuts.
• ⌨️ Tab-complete for skin names — nobody has to memorise the library.
• 📁 The library is just a folder — the file name becomes the skin name, then /skin reload.
• 🌐 Skins from outside the library — /skin player <nick> and /skin url <address>, both switchable in the config.
• 🧠 Texture cache — a texture fetched once is not sent to MineSkin again.
• 🗣️ Translations — en_us and pl_pl built in, your own language without a rebuild.
• 📦 One jar for 1.21+ — no mixins, no per-version builds.
• 🔌 Optional HTTP catalogue (libraryUrl) — if you already run a skin service.

Requirements

A Fabric server on 1.21 or newer, Java 21, and in mods/: Fabric API and FabricTailor.

Server-side only — players join with a vanilla client and need nothing installed.

Quick start

1. Put fabric-api, fabrictailor and skinlibrary into your server's mods/ folder.
2. Start the server once — it creates config/skinlibrary/.
3. Drop .png skins (64×64 or 64×32) into config/skinlibrary/skins/.
4. /skin reload, and they are live.

The file name becomes the skin name: pirate.png → /skin pirate.

Configuration

config/skinlibrary/config.json, created on first start:

{
  "language": "en_us",
  "allowPlayerSkins": true,
  "allowUrlSkins": true,
  "cooldownSeconds": 5,
  "requireOperator": false,
  "pageSize": 8,
  "slimByDefault": false,
  "libraryUrl": "",
  "commandAliases": ["skin", "skins"]
}

Nothing here is required — the defaults work. Notable options:

• commandAliases — rename the command if another mod already owns /skin.
• slimByDefault — treat file skins as the slim (Alex) model.
• libraryUrl — optional HTTP catalogue, if you already run one. It must answer with {"skins": [{"name": "...", "value": "...", "signature": "...", "author": "..."}]}; entries may use url instead of value.

Richer entries

For anything beyond "a PNG in a folder", add config/skinlibrary/skins.json:

{
  "notch":  { "player": "Notch",                      "author": "mojang" },
  "banner": { "url": "https://example.com/skin.png",  "author": "alice"  },
  "alex":   { "file": "alex.png", "slim": true,       "author": "bob"    }
}

Entries are grouped by author in the browser, so a shared server can see who added what.

Translations

Built in: en_us, pl_pl. Set language in the config.

To add your own, drop config/skinlibrary/lang/<code>.json with the same keys as en_us.json — no rebuild needed.

Minecraft versions

One jar covers 1.21 and up. The mod has no mixins and stays off the parts of the API that shift between releases, so it does not need a rebuild per point release.

The single exception is clickable chat: Minecraft 1.21.5 replaced the click/hover event API. On 1.21.5+ the list is clickable; on older releases the same list prints without click support and everything else works unchanged.

Source & license

github.com/PiotrKajor/skinlibrary — MIT. A Polish README is in the repository (README.md).