Install Workshop Mods on a Don't Starve Together Server

Add Workshop mods on your server's Mods page in the control panel. On each start, the server sets them up for the surface and the caves.

4 min read · Updated Sep 24, 2026 · By GuavaHost Team

Add Workshop mods on your server's Mods page. Every time the server starts, it sets each one up for both the surface and the caves.

Add a mod

1. Sign in at customer.guavahost.com, open My servers and click Manage on your Don't Starve Together server.
2. Open Mods under Game tools in the server menu.
3. Either search the Browse list further down the page and click Add next to a mod, or paste its Workshop link or ID into Add by Workshop ID and click Add. Repeat for as many mods as you like.
4. Click Save mods.
5. Press Restart at the top of the server page.

To remove a mod, click the cross next to it in the list, then Save mods and restart. The page saves your list into the Workshop mods field in Startup settings, which you can also edit by hand as a comma separated list of IDs, for example 378160973,375850593.

That is the whole job. On the next start your server downloads each mod and switches it on, and the console prints a line such as [GuavaHost] 2 Workshop mod(s) set up for both shards. before the game loads.

Finding the ID

Open the mod on the Steam Workshop. The number at the end of the address, after ?id=, is its ID. The Mods page accepts either the whole link or just the number. If you type into the Workshop mods field in Startup settings instead, put just the number, not the whole link.

What happens when the server starts

Don't Starve Together needs a mod named in two separate places: a list of what to download, and a list of what to enable. The second one is per shard, and your server runs two of them, the surface and the caves. A mod enabled on only one loads above ground and not underground, which players report as the mod being broken rather than as a setting being wrong.

Your server fills in both from the one mod list, before the game starts, every time:

Two things follow from that:

• Do not edit dedicated_server_mods_setup.lua by hand. It is rewritten from your mod list on every start, so anything you add there disappears.
• Do not add a mod by typing it into modoverrides.lua alone. An entry for a mod that is not on your mod list is removed the next time the server starts. Add the mod on the Mods page and let the server write the entry.

Mod options

Some mods have settings of their own. Those go in the two modoverrides.lua files above. The easiest way in is Server properties under Game tools, which shows them as Mod settings (surface) and Mod settings (caves); edit, then click Save changes. You can also open them from the Files tab. Stop the server before editing, then start it again afterwards.

return {
  ["workshop-378160973"] = { enabled = true, configuration_options = { max_slots = 20 } },
}

Three things worth knowing:

• Keep each mod on one line. When the server rewrites these files, it copies one-line entries across exactly as you wrote them. An entry spread over several lines keeps only its first line, which breaks the file.
• The surface and the caves have separate files. If you want the same options in both, make the same edit in both. You can also give a mod different options underground on purpose.
• To switch a mod off for a while without losing its options, change enabled = true to enabled = false on its line in both files. The server leaves your line alone as long as the mod is still on your mod list.

The option names come from the mod's own Workshop page or its modinfo.lua.

When a mod breaks after a game update

Don't Starve Together updates break mods regularly. If your server stops booting after an update:

1. Take a backup from the Backups page.
2. Note down your mod list from the Mods page, then remove the mods you added most recently and click Save mods.
3. Restart. The server removes those mods from both shards on its own.
4. Add them back one at a time, restarting after each, until you find the one at fault.

Checking it worked

Open the Console tab after a restart. You should see the [GuavaHost] line with the number of mods, and then the surface shard listing each mod as it downloads and loads it. It says so clearly when one fails. The Console shows the surface only; the caves shard writes its own log to DoNotStarveTogether/config/server/Caves/server_log.txt, which you can open from the Files tab if a mod works above ground but not below. How the caves shard works has more on the two shards.

Still stuck? Jump into our Discord at discord.gg/GuavaHost and the team will help you out.

• dont-starve-together
• mods
• workshop
• caves

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