Content tags and distributions

The game exists in more than one distribution: a Steam build, with what Steam accepts, and a full build on the hub and underlives.com. What goes where is carried by the data, checked by the validator, and never kept as a hand-written list of mods.

#The vocabulary

ul_Base/Content/content_tags.json holds the closed list, each tag with its doc. A mod may add a tag (a new entry in its own Content/content_tags.json); nobody removes one.

An element without a tag is for everyone. The children rules (the engine's own, Reference/CHILDREN_POLICY.md in the game repository) are not a tag: the engine enforces them in every distribution, and no profile lifts them.

#Where a tag goes

An element's tags are the union of its own, its feature's and its mod's. So a mod carries the union of everything in it, and a scene that goes further than the rest of the mod carries the difference itself: ul_Debts is violence throughout, and the one scene where a collector drugs the debtor adds drugs on that scene.

The scene grain is what makes a partly touched mod shippable: the mod stays, the scenes that carry a refused tag go.

#What implies a tag

Some things a scene does say what it contains without anyone writing a tag. The implies table of content_tags.json maps them to tags, and the validator reads it:

A scene that implies a tag its mod does not carry is a validator error: the author either adds the tag or takes the act out. A scripted scene (script, or a legacy RUN function) is read for its calls; a table scene for its effects. The full table has one line per witness act type of ul_Base and of every shipped mod.

#Distributions

ul_Base/Content/distributions.json: steam with name and deny, full with an empty deny.

deny lists the tags a build refuses. The Steam list follows Steam's adult-content rules of the day and is data, not code: it changes in this file, never in the engine.

#What the engine and the tools do with it

• Packaging. release.ps1 -Distribution steam leaves out a mod whose own tags hit the deny list, and from a partly touched mod removes the features, scenes and actions that carry a refused tag. Before packaging, the validator checks that what remains stands: no kept scene points at a removed one, a quest with a removed step is removed whole.
• Runtime. The build's distribution is read-only (Game:distribution() → "steam" or "full"). Refused elements are not disabled, they are absent from the disk.
• The Mods menu. A mod installed from the hub into a Steam build with a refused tag does not load; the list shows it as Blocked with the reason ("carries nonconsent, refused by this distribution"), like a missing requirement today.
• The hub. Shows each mod's tags and its compatibility per distribution, and refuses a publication without tags when the validator infers some.
• The validator (Tools/ModLint/) checks the vocabulary (an unknown tag is an error), the implies rules, and that a scene's own content is a subset of what the vocabulary knows.

This is not a player setting or a parental filter. The Peaceful / Balanced / Dark world profiles are a game setting; the distribution is a fact of the build.

#A complete example

ul_Debts: loan sharks, collectors, beatings, one feature that goes further, one scene where a debtor is drugged before a "lesson".

iniMODULE_UNIQUEID: ul_Debts
MODULE_NAME: Debts
MODULE_REQUIREMENTS: ul_Base
MODULE_CONTENT: violence
MODULE_FEATURE: loan_sharks | Loan sharks | on
MODULE_FEATURE: bookie | The bookie | on
MODULE_FEATURE: the_wife | Taking the debtor's wife | on | nonconsent, sexual

The one scene that goes further than the mod (Scenes as tables):

luareturn {
	id = "ul_db_press_lesson",
	feature = "loan_sharks",
	content = { "drugs" },
	beats = { --[[ … ]] },
}

What each build does:

Change the steam profile to deny drugs and the same data gives: ul_Debts loads, ul_db_press_lesson is left out too, and the validator first checks nothing kept still points at it.

A mod whose subject is refused is simply absent from that build: ul_Incest (sexual, incest, nonconsent) does not exist in the Steam package, and a Steam player who installs it from the hub sees it Blocked in the Mods menu with the reason.

#Shipped mods today

The inventory of 2026-10-25 tagged 73 of the 166 shipped ul_* mods (Reference/CONTENT_TAGS_INVENTORY_2026-10-25.md in the game repository): every tagged mod carries a MODULE_CONTENT: line, and the report names the scenes that carry the strongest tag inside mixed mods, which is where the scene-level content goes as those mods are converted to tables.