DayZ Workshop
Crawler

What it is

The Workshop Crawler treats the DayZ Steam Workshop as a dataset. It reads the Workshop's own listing, downloads each mod through SteamCMD, opens every PBO and records a SHA-256 hash for every file inside. Scripts, configs and layouts are kept as text, binarized config.bin files are decoded back to readable form, and every unique file is stored once, no matter how many mods ship the same bytes.

The Workshop holds over 128,000 items from more than 28,000 creators. The crawler indexes it one mod at a time, so the index grows as the crawl runs. It is in beta: coverage is partial today and some mods are not in it yet.

What it does

• A whole-Workshop index. Every public DayZ Workshop item with its metadata, updates and creator, walked daily so additions, updates and removals are tracked.
• A hash for every file. Each PBO and every file inside it gets a SHA-256, so two mods that ship the same bytes are matched exactly, never by name.
• Identical PBOs linked, not stored twice. A PBO already seen in another mod is linked to it, which makes shared and copied packs visible at a glance.
• A text archive. Scripts, configs and layouts are archived; binarized config.bin files are decoded. Binaries are recorded by name, size and hash.
• Provable repack detection. When the same PBO appears under two creators, the earliest publisher is the original. A later copy is called a repack only when the dates prove it; anything unclear is marked ambiguous.
• Obfuscation statistics. Decoy and junk entries that obfuscators plant in PBO headers are counted, so you can see how much of a mod is real.
• Mod versions and update readiness. Which mods were updated for the current DayZ version, and which are still waiting.
• Workshop statistics and a live crawl view. How big the Workshop is, how fast it grows, and what the crawler is doing right now.

How it works

1. The Steam Web API lists every DayZ Workshop item. The index records the metadata and tracks what changes from day to day.
2. SteamCMD downloads each mod exactly as a subscriber would receive it.
3. Every PBO is opened and every file inside is hashed with SHA-256.
4. A PBO already seen in another mod is linked to it instead of being extracted again.
5. Text files are archived; binaries are recorded by name, size and hash.
6. Statistics, repack checks and the script library are built from the result.

Who it is for

• Server owners. See what a mod really contains before it goes on your server, and whether its PBOs are copies of someone else's work.
• Mod authors. Find out whether your PBOs or scripts turn up inside other people's packs, with dates that show who published first.
• Anyone curious about the Workshop. How big it is, how fast it grows, and how much of it is obfuscated.

Questions

Built by Sector-0

The Workshop Crawler is a DayZ Index tool, built by Sector-0. Sign in with Discord and the dashboard, the Workshop statistics and the live crawl view are open to you; deeper tools open as the beta progresses.