Lineage

Author's Note

Most RaceMenu presets don't come with a list of what they need. A single face can depend on hair, eyes, brows, skin textures and slider mods from a dozen different pages, and the first sign that one is missing is a character who looks nothing like the screenshots.

Presets also carry more than a face. Authors often save their own BodySlide sliders, body tattoos and height into the file, so loading their preset replaces your body with theirs.

Lineage started as a way to answer one question: what does this preset need? It grew into the tool I use to manage my whole collection.Overview

Lineage reads your RaceMenu presets and tells you what each one needs, whether it will load on your setup, and what it will overwrite on your character.

Pick a preset and Lineage lists every plugin, texture and slider it uses, then traces each one back to the mod it came from, with a link to that mod's page. Readiness goes a step further: it checks that everything a preset uses is installed, active and actually loading, for one preset or your whole collection at once.

Lineage also cleans the author's body data out of presets, finds duplicates, backs up every preset you have, and builds release packs for preset authors.

Nothing to install in Skyrim. Lineage is a standalone Windows program. It has no ESP and no SKSE plugin, and it never runs inside the game.Features

Find What a Preset Needs

• Find Assets - lists every plugin, texture and custom slider a preset references, and traces each to its source mod through MO2's meta.ini, Vortex's deployment manifest, a Nexus Mods lookup of the file itself, and your Asset Library.
• Mod cards - each identified mod shows its Nexus thumbnail, author, category and version, which references came from it, and an Open on Nexus button.
• Honest about the rest - anything Lineage can't identify is listed as Unknown, with Add Link and Search the web buttons. Base game and Creation Club references are listed separately, out of the way.
• Readiness - checks that every plugin a preset uses is installed and active, and that every texture exists loose or inside an archive Skyrim actually loads.
• Collection sweep - Check all presets runs Readiness across your whole collection and groups the problems by cause, with the fix that clears the most presets at the top. Presets RaceMenu can't read at all are listed too.
• Drag and drop - drop a .jslot on the window and it opens on the page you're on. Drop two on Compare to fill both sides.

Clean and Compare

• Clean Preset - removes what the author's own setup left in a preset: BodySlide sliders, body tattoos, height and skeleton scaling, weapon and camera placement. Face overlays are never touched.
• See it before it happens - Clean Preset shows exactly what will be removed before anything changes, and offers Undo afterwards.
• Batch Clean - the same cleanup across your collection, with every file listed so you can untick the ones to leave alone.
• Formatting kept - a cleaned preset is written back in its own layout. Everything you didn't remove stays exactly as it was.
• Compare - finds exact copies, the same face saved with different body data, and near-twins only a few details apart. Clear out copies in a couple of clicks; one in every group always stays.
• Side-by-side diff - pick any two presets to see exactly what differs, section by section: head parts, sliders, sculpt, tints, face textures, overlays and body.

Keep Your Presets Safe

• Backup - one click archives every preset in your setup into a dated zip, with the folder structure kept so you can tell which mod each came from.
• Restore - compare any backup with what's on disk and put back the presets that changed or went missing.
• Backup reminder - at launch, Lineage tells you when presets have changed or been added since your last backup.
• Snapshots and History - cleaning, removing duplicates and restoring from a backup all save the presets they change first, so each can be undone from History.
• No clutter - no .bak files and no leftover temp files in your mod folders. Backups and snapshots live in their own folder.

Asset Library

• Teach it once - when Lineage can't identify something, link it to a mod page yourself. Your link is used for that reference from then on, in every preset.
• Exact or prefix - link one exact plugin, texture or slider, or everything starting with the same name, such as a whole texture folder or slider family.
• Built-in entries - 46 curated entries ship with Lineage for references the automatic lookups can't place. Your own entries always win.
• Collection Review - scans every preset you have and groups what's still unknown, so one link can clear a whole group.

What Clean Preset Removes

Preset authors save their whole character into a preset, not just the face. When you load it, their body and placement data replaces yours. Clean Preset sorts that data into categories, and you choose which to remove:

• Body morphs - BodySlide sliders and XPMSE morphs. On by default.
• Body overlays - tattoos and paint on body, hands and feet. On by default.
• Height & skeleton - root scale (height), spine, limbs and fingers. On by default.
• Weapon & camera - weapon, shield and quiver placement, and camera nodes. On by default.
• Head & neck - head scale and neck. Off by default, since it's usually part of the look.

Never removed: face overlays such as makeup, freckles and warpaint. No category touches them, and anything Lineage doesn't recognise is left alone too.

Batch Clean needs a backup first. It won't start until you have a backup that still exists, and it snapshots every selected preset before changing any of them. A single Clean Preset can run without a full backup, since its own snapshot covers it.Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
• Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime - included with Windows 11. The installer downloads it if your PC doesn't have it.

Lineage works with Mod Organizer 2, Vortex, or a plain Skyrim install. A Nexus Mods personal API key is optional: it lets Find Assets match files to Nexus mod pages. Without one, Lineage still lists every reference and identifies what it can from your mod folders and the Asset Library.

Installation

1. Download the Lineage installer from the Files tab.
2. Run it. Lineage is a Windows program, not a game mod, so don't install it with your mod manager.
3. Launch Lineage. First-time setup asks how you manage mods, with your mod manager already picked if Lineage found it, and fills in the folders it can detect.
4. Check the folders, then click Save & Start.

Your settings, Asset Library entries and Nexus cache are kept in %APPDATA%\com.coldsun.lineage\. Backups go to Documents\Lineage\Backups unless you choose another folder.Getting Started

Where Lineage Looks for Presets

Lineage searches its JSLOT locations, including every subfolder. The defaults depend on how you manage mods:

• Mod Organizer 2 - every mod enabled in your chosen profile, plus Overwrite.
• Vortex - the staging folder and the game's Data folder.
• Manual - Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen\Presets in your Skyrim folder.

Add or remove locations in Settings under JSLOT locations. Settings also shows how many presets it found and where.

Adding a Nexus API Key

1. Open your Nexus Mods API keys page and copy your personal API key.
2. In Lineage, click the gear icon, paste the key under Nexus Mods API key, and click Validate.

The key is stored in your Lineage settings file, is never logged, and is hidden in the interface once saved. Nexus answers are cached, so scanning the same presets again doesn't use up your daily requests. Find Assets shows how many you have left.

Linking a Mod Yourself

When Find Assets lists something under Unknown:

1. Click Add Link on the reference.
2. Enter the mod's name and the link to its page.
3. Choose whether it covers these exact references or everything starting with a shared prefix, such as a texture folder or slider family.

The link is saved to your Asset Library and used in every preset from then on. Your entries are kept in library.json in Lineage's settings folder, so updating Lineage never touches them.

To clear unknowns in bulk, open Asset Library and click Review collection. It groups what's still unknown across every preset you have, and Add Link on a group fills in the shared prefix for you.

A Few Things to Remember

• Back up first. Batch Clean won't run without a backup, and a fresh backup is the simplest undo there is.
• Snapshots are kept for a while, not forever. Lineage keeps the last 10 by default (Snapshots to keep, in Settings) and deletes older ones as new ones are made. Full backups are never deleted.
• Removing duplicates deletes files. Compare snapshots the copies first, but they don't go to the Recycle Bin. Restore them from History while that snapshot is still kept.
• Lineage uses the MO2 profile chosen in its Settings. Switching profiles in MO2 doesn't switch it in Lineage.
• Slider families are confirmed with MO2 only. Readiness confirms a slider mod by matching its Nexus page to an enabled mod. With Vortex or a manual install, sliders show as unconfirmed rather than missing.

What Lineage Writes

Lineage reads your mod folders, your profile and plugins.txt. It never writes to plugins.txt, your MO2 profile or Skyrim's INI files.

The only files it changes inside your mod folders are presets, and only when you clean, restore or remove them. Each write goes to a temporary file first and then replaces the preset in one step, so a crash partway through can't leave a half-written preset behind. No .bak files are created, and no temp files are left over.

Backups and snapshots go to your backup folder. Lineage warns you if you choose a folder inside Skyrim's Data folder or your mod manager's folders, where the archives could get picked up and deployed into the game.

Lineage never touches your saves. It installs nothing into Skyrim, so you can add or remove it at any point in a playthrough.For Preset Authors

The Release page gets a preset pack ready for Nexus. Add presets one at a time, or pick or drop whole folders.

Requirements Section

• Every mod the pack needs - one linked line per mod, with RaceMenu always included.
• Usage counts - a mod only some presets use is marked "used by N of M presets".
• Three formats - Nexus BBCode, Markdown or plain text, ready to copy. The BBCode uses the same header style as this page.
• As it will ship - by default the list is built from cleaned copies, so mods that only the author's body data used are left off.
• Unknowns flagged - references Lineage couldn't identify are left out of the text and listed for you to name in the Asset Library.

Release Pack

• The zip players install - presets go under SKSE\Plugins\CharGen\Presets\, with an optional folder of your own inside it.
• Cleaned copies - presets are cleaned on their way into the zip. Your own preset files are only read.
• Head exports included - each preset's RaceMenu head export (.nif and .dds) ships in SKSE\Plugins\CharGen\, renamed to match the preset.
• Found by name, or chosen by hand - Lineage finds exports with exactly the preset's name. When yours were saved under another name, use Choose... for one preset or Find in a folder... to match many at once.
• Checked after writing - every head export is checked to really be a NIF or DDS, and the finished zip is checked against what was planned. If anything fails, no zip is written and an existing one is left alone.

RaceMenu's Export Head saves under whatever name you type in its dialog, separately from Save Preset, so the two names often drift apart. Lineage only matches exact names, because similar names are often different faces. Nothing else goes in the zip: no requirements text, screenshots or readme.

The source code is available on GitHub, where each release's installers are also attached.Troubleshooting

Readiness says "Set your Skyrim folder in Settings first."

Lineage finds Skyrim through Steam and GOG. If yours lives somewhere else, such as a Stock Game folder, set it yourself. With Vortex or Manual, set Skyrim install folder in Settings. With Mod Organizer 2, that field is hidden: choose Manual, set the folder, switch back to Mod Organizer 2, then click Save.

A mod I have installed shows up as Unknown

Find Assets identifies a file through its mod's meta.ini in MO2, Vortex's manifest, or a Nexus lookup of the file, which needs an API key. A mod installed by hand has no meta.ini, and Find Assets doesn't look inside BSA archives. Use Add Link to name it once; the link then applies in every preset.

Readiness says a texture is missing, but the mod is enabled

If the texture is inside a BSA, Skyrim only loads that archive when an active plugin shares its name (such as X.bsa or X - Textures.bsa) or Skyrim's INI lists it. Readiness names the archive it found and why it doesn't load. Enabling the plugin that goes with it usually fixes it.

Slider families say "unconfirmed"

Unconfirmed isn't missing. Lineage can only confirm a slider mod with MO2, by matching its Nexus page to an enabled mod installed from that page. Presets with unconfirmed sliders still count as ready.

Batch Clean won't start

It needs a backup that still exists where it was saved. Click Back up now on the Backup page, then try again.

Find Assets says the Nexus rate limit was reached

Nexus allows a set number of API requests per day. Mods already identified stay cached, and lookups resume at the reset time Lineage shows.

The backup reminder keeps coming back

It appears when presets have changed or been added since your last backup. Back up now clears it. Not now hides it until the next time you launch Lineage.Credits

• ColdSun - Lineage and its built-in Asset Library entries.
• Expired - RaceMenu.
• Nexus Mods - the API Find Assets uses to identify mods.
• The Tauri, Svelte, and Rust contributors - the tools and libraries Lineage is built on.