Steam Utility Launcher

Downloads game utilities from GitHub releases and launches them. On Linux it runs them within the same Proton prefix the game uses, so trainers and practice tools function properly. On Windows only the download/update functionality is useful; running tools inside a Proton prefix is Linux-only.

Installation

pipx install steam-utility-launcher

Usage

Note: Always launch the game first, then run the utility. The tool runs inside the game's already-running Proton wineserver, so the game must be open before the launcher is invoked.

Global flags (--log-file, -v, -q, --debug) must come before the subcommand name:

steam-utility-launcher --debug dsr-gadget   # correct
steam-utility-launcher dsr-gadget --debug   # ignored

Preset utilities

After launching Dark Souls: Remastered, run DSR-Gadget:

steam-utility-launcher dsr-gadget

After launching Hitman WoA, run the Peacock private server:

steam-utility-launcher hitman-peacock

Linux note: Peacock requires node to be installed and in your PATH (node chunk0.js is run directly, outside of Wine). Peacock user data (userdata/, contracts/, contractSessions/) is preserved across updates.

After launching Dark Souls: Remastered, run SilkySouls:

steam-utility-launcher silky-souls

Install and run ROTK Launcher for Z1 Battle Royale:

steam-utility-launcher rotk-launcher

Linux note: the game doesn't need to already be running for this one — ROTK Launcher isn't a mod that attaches to a live game process, so it just needs the game's Proton prefix to exist (i.e. the game has been launched at least once before).

If ROTK Launcher isn't installed yet, this downloads the latest release, verifies its checksum against the release's SHA256SUMS.txt, and runs the installer silently inside the game's Proton prefix before launching the app.

If it's already installed, this does not update it — ROTK Launcher has its own in-app auto-updater, so this tool defers to that rather than fighting over version state. It checks GitHub for a newer release at most once a day (not on every run) and logs a warning (visible even without -v/--debug) when one's found, so you're occasionally reminded one is available without hitting the network every time you launch:

steam-utility-launcher rotk-launcher --force

Pass --force to install the latest release immediately instead of waiting on the in-app updater (also useful to repair an installation, since it reinstalls even if already at the latest version).

Wine's powershell.exe is an unimplemented stub: it never runs the script it's given and always exits 0. ROTK Launcher's installer (and its own in-app auto-updater, which shares the same NSIS installer machinery) uses a PowerShell one-liner to check whether an old instance of itself is running before installing, treating exit 0 as "yes, it's running" — since the stub always exits 0, it would otherwise conclude the app is permanently running and get stuck forever on a "cannot be closed" dialog. To avoid that, rotk-launcher temporarily swaps in a small native powershell.exe replacement (see resources/powershell_shim.c) that answers that specific check using real Win32 process enumeration, only for the duration of the installer subprocess. Whatever was at powershell.exe before (Wine's stub, in practice) is put back exactly as it was immediately afterward, so nothing about the prefix is left changed. The shim binaries are prebuilt and shipped with the package, so this needs nothing extra installed. (Maintainers rebuilding them from resources/powershell_shim.c after a change need a mingw-w64 cross-compiler — see build-powershell-shim at the repo root.)

Manual usage

Run any arbitrary Windows executable inside a game's Proton prefix. The game's Steam App ID is in its store page URL — store.steampowered.com/app/570940/Dark_Souls_Remastered/.

# Specify the game by its Steam App ID
steam-utility-launcher manual -g 570940 /path/to/SomeTool.exe

# Auto-detect the currently running Proton game
steam-utility-launcher manual --auto /path/to/SomeTool.exe

--auto caveat: detection scans running processes for an active wineserver and picks the first match. If multiple games are running in Proton simultaneously the result is unpredictable; use -g instead.

Add -w/--wait to block until the launched process exits, then exit with its status code. Useful for installers or any tool whose result you need to check:

steam-utility-launcher manual -g 433850 --wait /path/to/Installer.exe
echo "exit code: $?"

Finding a game's Proton prefix

Print the WINEPREFIX path used by a game, without launching anything:

steam-utility-launcher prefix-path -g 570940
steam-utility-launcher prefix-path --auto

This correctly resolves the game's Steam library (primary or a secondary library), so it works even for games not installed in the default Steam library.

Installed tool locations

Tools are downloaded to:

~/.local/share/steam-utility-launcher/<ToolName>/

For example, DSR-Gadget lives at ~/.local/share/steam-utility-launcher/DSR-Gadget/.

Each tool directory contains a .github_release_tag file recording the installed version. The launcher checks GitHub on every run and updates automatically when a newer release is available. To force a fresh download, delete that file:

rm ~/.local/share/steam-utility-launcher/DSR-Gadget/.github_release_tag

Logging

Add --log-file FILE to write logs to a rotating file. Use -v / -q / --debug to control console verbosity.