[Question] How can we differentiate between Forge and NeoForge mods?

[Kir-Antipov]

Hi folks! I'm a maintainer of a GitHub Action that aids users in publishing their Minecraft projects across various platforms, such as Modrinth and CurseForge. At present, my action identifies NeoForge mods as Forge mods, which is in line with what was stated on your website:

At the present time, mods built by either system should be intercompatible between forks.

However, when the transition to become a hard fork takes place, how will we be able to distinguish between Forge and NeoForge mods? Is it possible that the forge dependency in mods.toml will become neoforge?

[[dependencies.foo]]
-    modId="forge"
+    modId="neoforge"

Alternatively, could there be plans to entirely revamp the metadata format and adopt a naming style similar to Fabric and Quilt, such as neoforge.mod.(json|toml)?

[shartte]

I think this will only resolve itself past 1.20.1
I believe for now you can rely on people specifying it manually in your GH Action (or, you default to [forge, neoforge] if you detect MC version 1.20.1)

[DereC4]

wait are forge mods compatible with neoforge?

[Kir-Antipov]

NeoForge is a fork of Forge. Thus, there was a brief period when NeoForge and Forge were essentially the same, distinguished only by their branding. However, as the time goes, Forge continues to stagnate, while NeoForge continues to evolve with new features and clean up the issues inherited from Forge. Consequently, they grow apart more and more every day, and at present, Forge mods are generally not compatible as is with NeoForge anymore.

[Kir-Antipov]

Answering my own question, my assumption was correct – NeoForge now utilizes the neoforge dependency instead of the legacy forge one:

[[dependencies.foo]]
-    modId="forge"
+    modId="neoforge"