Human Only Section

I have been a professional software engineer since 2016 and have worked professionally in technology since 2012. However my experience is not traditionally with modding games. Keep that in mind when you use this. This project is (clearly) built with AI assistance. I have personally reviewed all code. Concept, architecture (what little of it there is in this project), design, are all mine.

Any artwork used is AI generated as I am not an artist. If anyone with any artistic talent wants to contribute what little artwork there is in this project please feel free to put up a PR. However, there really is only the project icon for Thunderstore at this point. There is potential for in game controller and button glyphs, scuttle available indicator with button glyph, etc... For art only PRs I will only accept non AI generated art as I can easily prompt LLMs myself for Gen AI imagery and inconography.

Extra Button Support

Use your controller's extra buttons (back paddles, extra bumpers, macro buttons such as C/Z) in Hollow Knight: Silksong as real, separate buttons:

• Bind any action to an extra button in the game's own Remap Controller screen.
• Use the new Tool Up / Tool Neutral / Tool Down binds to fire the tool or silk skill in that slot directly, without holding a direction. A dedicated tool bind also interrupts a sprint.
• Use the new Scuttle bind to scuttle (needs Scuttlebrace equipped) without holding Down + Dash.
• Extra buttons show your controller's real button glyphs.
• No keyboard keys are involved, so the prompts stay on controller glyphs.

Gameplay change: the mod adds one mechanic that isn't in the vanilla game. Pressing a Tool Up / Tool Neutral / Tool Down bind while sprinting interrupts the sprint and uses the tool. It doesn't interrupt a sprint direction change or a dash animation: a tool pressed during those is queued exactly the way vanilla queues it. The vanilla Skill / Tool button behaves as it always has with no interrupt. If you want your silk skill to interrupt sprint you must remap your silk skill to Tool Neutral.

Supported controllers

This mod is for controllers that Steam supports through SDL and/or DirectInput and whose extra buttons can be mapped in Steam Input. The extra buttons reach the game as Steam Input actions, so the game must be launched through Steam for the mod to work.

Tested with:

Should also work (untested)

Steam Input can map the extra buttons on these controllers, so the mod should work with them, but they haven't been tested. Steam only lists a community layout for the controller type it was made for, so a layout from a similar controller won't always show up.

Requirements

• Silksong on Steam, launched through Steam, with Steam Input enabled for your controller (the default).
• BepInExPack_Silksong.

Setup

1. Install the mod with a mod manager (r2modman, Gale, Cogfly), or extract the zip into BepInEx/plugins/. On Linux / Steam Deck (Proton), BepInEx itself needs the usual WINEDLLOVERRIDES="winhttp=n,b" %command% launch option (or a winhttp override in the game's prefix via protontricks/winecfg).
2. In Steam, open Silksong's controller settings (Steam overlay → Controller settings) → Browse layouts → Community, and apply the Extra Button Support layout for your controller (see Supported controllers). It already has the extra buttons bound. If there's none for your controller, see Build your own layout below.
3. In Silksong: Options → Controller → Remap Controller. Select an action (or Tool Up / Neutral / Down, or Scuttle) and press an extra button.

How it works

Steam Input reads the extra buttons. An Extra Button Support layout has twelve Steam Input game actions, Extra Button 1 to Extra Button 12, alongside the normal gamepad bindings. When you press a physical button bound to one of them, Steam tells the mod, and the mod gives the game a new, separate controller button. The game treats it like any other button: you can bind it in Remap Controller, and its prompt shows Steam's picture of the physical button. Your normal gamepad buttons keep working as usual.

The mod installs nothing into Steam: the Extra Button actions come from the layout you apply. On any other layout the game behaves exactly as without the mod.

Binding an extra button in Steam

1. Apply an Extra Button Support layout, or your own layout from Build your own layout.
2. Choose Edit Layout and select the physical button you want to use (a back paddle, for example).
3. Open Game Actions and pick the Extra Button whose number matches the button's position (see the table below).
4. Save the layout. In Silksong, go to Remap Controller, select an action and press the button.

Steam's editor can't add the Extra Button actions. Only Extra Button Support layouts, and layouts you've added them to (see Build your own layout), carry them. Converting any other layout to game actions in Steam's editor removes all of its gamepad bindings.

Extra Button numbering

Each Extra Button number stands for a position on the controller, not a manufacturer's button name. Use the same numbers on every controller and your in-game binds carry over when you switch.

Examples from the tested layouts:

Build your own layout

If there's no Extra Button Support layout for your controller, add the Extra Button actions to a layout yourself. Steam's editor can't add them, so this is a one-time edit of the layout file. After that you bind buttons in Steam as usual.

1. In Steam, open Silksong's controller settings, set up the layout you want to start from (Steam's Gamepad template keeps your normal buttons) and save it as a new personal layout.
2. Exit Steam completely (Steam → Exit). Steam rewrites layout files while it's running.
3. Open the layout file in a text editor. Silksong's personal layouts are in Steam/steamapps/common/Steam Controller Configs/<account ID>/config/1030300/, and the file name starts with the name you gave the layout.
4. Make these changes:
   • If the file has a top-level "localization" block (indented one tab), delete the whole block, from "localization" to its closing }.
   • Paste the block below on a new line just above the first line that reads "group".
   • If the "title" or "description" line near the top says #Title or #Description, replace it with your own text.
5. Save the file, start Steam and apply your layout. Then bind your extra buttons as in Binding an extra button in Steam.

	"actions"
	{
		"Default"
		{
			"title"		"#Set_Default"
			"legacy_set"		"0"
			"Button"
			{
				"extra_1"		"#Action_Extra1"
				"extra_2"		"#Action_Extra2"
				"extra_3"		"#Action_Extra3"
				"extra_4"		"#Action_Extra4"
				"extra_5"		"#Action_Extra5"
				"extra_6"		"#Action_Extra6"
				"extra_7"		"#Action_Extra7"
				"extra_8"		"#Action_Extra8"
				"extra_9"		"#Action_Extra9"
				"extra_10"		"#Action_Extra10"
				"extra_11"		"#Action_Extra11"
				"extra_12"		"#Action_Extra12"
			}
		}
	}
	"action_layers"
	{
	}
	"localization"
	{
		"english"
		{
			"Set_Default"		"Default"
			"Action_Extra1"		"Extra Button 1"
			"Action_Extra2"		"Extra Button 2"
			"Action_Extra3"		"Extra Button 3"
			"Action_Extra4"		"Extra Button 4"
			"Action_Extra5"		"Extra Button 5"
			"Action_Extra6"		"Extra Button 6"
			"Action_Extra7"		"Extra Button 7"
			"Action_Extra8"		"Extra Button 8"
			"Action_Extra9"		"Extra Button 9"
			"Action_Extra10"		"Extra Button 10"
			"Action_Extra11"		"Extra Button 11"
			"Action_Extra12"		"Extra Button 12"
		}
	}

Uninstalling

1. Before removing the mod, open Remap Controller and choose Reset Defaults (or move every action off the extra buttons and the Tool / Scuttle rows). Without the mod, actions bound to extra buttons do nothing, and an action left unbound by a Tool row stays unbound.
2. Remove the mod, and pick another layout for Silksong in Steam if you like.

Notes and limits

• Single player: extra-button presses go to the active controller.
• Tested on the Windows build under Proton. Native Windows and native Linux are supported by design, but untested.
• The mod doesn't modify Steam, game files or saves. Your Tool / Scuttle binds are saved in BepInEx/config/io.github.andygobrien.extrabuttonsupport.cfg.
• Silksong's official layout (Team Cherry's) is untouched; you pick an Extra Button Support layout once.

Troubleshooting

Check BepInEx/LogOutput.log for lines starting with [extra]. usesSteamInputAPI=True in a config loaded line means an Extra Button Support layout is active.

Credits

• ToolKeybinds by KikuGie (source, MIT) showed how to fire a specific tool slot by overriding HeroController.GetWillThrowTool. The Tool Up / Neutral / Down binds build on that idea. No ToolKeybinds code is included.