WoW Addon Lab

A standalone World of Warcraft addon runtime for developing and testing installed addons without launching the game.

Currently in "early" development, not ready for use yet just for messing with!

What works

• Native Lua 5.1.5 through Lua.NET, including WoW compatibility helpers.
• Per product addon catalog.
• Optional official Blizzard UI loading, enabled by default and loaded before user addons.
• Multi-addon Lua loading.
• Emulator-only, account-wide, and per-character SavedVariables selections under %LOCALAPPDATA%\WoWAddonLab\SavedVariables.
• Inspector, Lua console, logs, reload controls, and a localhost automation API.

Requirements

• .NET 10 SDK
• A locally installed World of Warcraft product

Run

Desktop GUI:

dotnet run --project src\WoWAddonLab

Headless for an AI agent, test runner, or CI:

dotnet run --project src\WoWAddonLab --headless --product wow --enable MyAddonName

--product accepts a product code such as wow, wowdev2, a product folder such as _retail_, or a full product path. --enable is repeatable or comma-separated. Use --profile account:MYACCOUNTNAME --import-saved to copy that profile's data into the isolated emulator profile before startup.

Use --no-blizzard-ui for isolated addon development, or --blizzard-ui to force the official bootstrap regardless of the saved product setting. --no-tact also prevents Blizzard UI extraction, so pair it with --no-blizzard-ui for a fully local isolated run.

--game-type wowhack loads the Blizzard UI as the Talebound game mode (standard is the default, wowlabs is Plunderstorm); the Addons tab has the same Game mode choice for mainline products.

The automation API listens only on 127.0.0.1:43117. Change it with --port 43118. Use --ticks N for a smoke run.

More info coming soon