About SteamTools.games
What SteamTools.games is, who runs it, the SteamTools desktop client it serves, and the upstream data layer it depends on.
Last updated: 2026-07-05
SteamTools.games, in one sentence
A free, browser-based utility that produces the appmanifest_<APPID>.acf and matching Lua script that the SteamTools desktop client needs to install a Steam game for offline use. It is a thin generator over Steam's public APIs and the open-source ManifestHub3 data cache. The generator itself is the smallest possible piece of software that can do the job: no account, no tracking, no SaaS, no upsell.
What is the SteamTools desktop client?
SteamTools, also known as Watt Toolkit (its Chinese name) and historically as Steam++, is an open-source Steam fork and depot-key unlocker maintained by BeyondDimension. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and lets a user maintain a fully functional offline Steam library, manage multiple Steam accounts, accelerate downloads, and apply community-published manifest + Lua unlocks.
SteamTools.games is not SteamTools. We are an independent generator that produces one of the inputs SteamTools consumes. The desktop client itself is a separate project with its own maintainers, release cadence, and license.
What is ManifestHub3?
Every manifest and Lua file the generator produces is built from ManifestHub3, a community-maintained mirror of the original ManifestHub database. The original ManifestHub project was taken down from GitHub in 2022; ManifestHub3 is the continuation under a new maintainer group. The cache is open source under MIT and consists of the manifest and Lua pairs grouped by Steam AppID.
This separation matters. The site is a thin generator; the data is the substance. Pinning the data to a public, version-controlled repo means anyone can audit what we serve, fork it for their own use, or run their own mirror without depending on us. If our generator ever goes down, the data is still on GitHub and any other generator can read it.
What is SteamDB?
SteamDB is an unrelated third-party site that tracks public Steam metadata: prices, depot updates, package changes, server status. SteamDB is useful for the investigation part of a manifest lookup (is this app delisted? did a depot change?) but does not distribute manifest or Lua files. We link to SteamDB in some of our troubleshooting pages but otherwise have no integration with them.
How does SteamTools.games relate to the other tools?
| Tool | Role | SteamTools.games relationship |
|---|---|---|
| Steam (Valve) | The storefront, license server, and download CDN. | We read public metadata via store.steampowered.com/api/appdetails. |
| SteamTools desktop client | The runtime that consumes manifest + Lua files. | We produce the files SteamTools needs; we do not distribute or modify the client. |
| ManifestHub3 | The open-source cache of manifest + Lua files, grouped by AppID. | We read from it on every generate call; the data is the source of truth. |
| SteamDB | Public Steam metadata tracker. | No integration; we link out only for context. |
| Steamtools.games (this site) | The browser generator + REST API that wraps ManifestHub3 and the Steam public API. | — |
Who runs this site
SteamTools.games is operated by a small group of SteamTools community members under the GitHub org steamtools-games. We are not Valve, not the SteamTools project, not SteamDB, and not affiliated with any of the upstream maintainers. The generator itself is open source at github.com/steamtools-games/steamtools.games — small enough to audit in a sitting, with no build step beyond pnpm install and pnpm dev.
What we promise
- The site stays free to use (no account, no payment, no API key).
- The site does not require an account.
- We do not sell your search history or personal data as a product.
- We may show Google ads to help cover hosting; downloads never go through link shorteners. Details are in the privacy policy.
- If the service needs to come down for any reason, a notice will go on the blog and a banner on the home page first.
What it is not
- It is not a piracy tool. The generator produces manifest and Lua files derived from public Steam data and the ManifestHub3 community cache. The service does not bypass Steam authentication, license checks, or any DRM.
- It is not a SaaS. There is no account, no email, no payment, no trial, no upsell. The site is one HTML page and two API routes.
- It is not affiliated with Valve. Steam, the Steam logo, and any other Valve trademarks are property of Valve Corporation and are used here for descriptive purposes only, under fair use.
- It is not endorsed by SteamTools. We are independent operators; any opinion on this site is ours, not BeyondDimension's.
What we ask of you
- Be patient with the rate limit. 1.5 s per IP exists for a reason: it keeps the service usable for everyone, including people on mobile networks in regions where Steam's API is throttled.
- Report broken App IDs in the Discord, not in a 1-star review on a third-party site. We cannot fix what we cannot see.
- If you are embedding the service in a tutorial or video, link to the canonical URL and the Discord, not to a mirror you scraped yesterday. Mirrors die; canonicals do not.
Project history and timeline
- 2022 — The original ManifestHub repo on GitHub is taken down. Community members start mirroring the data in private repos.
- 2023 — The first public mirror is published; SteamTools community members begin experimenting with a self-hosted generator front-end.
- 2024 — steamtools-games org is founded. The ManifestHub3 cache is published under MIT. The first version of the generator goes live at a placeholder URL.
- 2025 — The generator is rebuilt on TanStack Start and deployed to Cloudflare Pages. The public REST API (
/api/search,/api/generate) is published with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec. - 2026 — The generator is migrated to read all blog content from D1 instead of MDX; bilingual support is added across the full site; the LLMs.txt and LLMs-full.txt mirrors are published so LLM answer engines can cite the canonical facts directly.
A note on the "open source" part
The full source of the site, including this page, the generator, the API routes, and the message files for English and Chinese, is published on GitHub. The repo is small (around 30 source files) and dependencies are minimal. If you want to host your own copy for some reason, the entire setup takes about ten minutes on a fresh VPS.
License and attribution
- The generator source code: MIT license.
- The MDX content on this site (including this page): CC BY-SA 4.0.
- The ManifestHub3 data cache: MIT license, courtesy of the original ManifestHub contributors and the ManifestHub3 maintainer group.
- SteamTools desktop client: see the SteamTools repo for its license.
- Steam metadata: used under fair use; all trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Contact
- The fastest way to reach a human is the Discord.
- For privacy-related requests, see the Privacy Policy.
- For the rules of the road, see the Terms of Service.
See also
- What is a Steam manifest file, and how do you use it with SteamTools? — the complete front-door guide; this page is a deeper dive into one part of it.