Early Tags
by falkreon
Early Tags is a Fabric library that exposes tag membership to other mods before the game's registries are ready, so Identifier-based lookups can run during early startup.
What it does
Tags are normally unavailable early in startup, and items and blocks often do not exist yet when a mod first asks about them. Early Tags reads tag data straight from the contents of the mod jars, in the same manner Suspicious Shapes does, and makes that data available much sooner than the usual loading path allows. Its implementation is kept deliberately small and centered on tag data, and the mod is intended to be used as a library by other mods.
The library is built on Fabric, with Fabric API required alongside it. Early Tags runs on client and server, so both sides need it. Files exist for 1.21.1 – 1.21.5, with 0.1.1+1.21.1 for 1.21.5 as the latest build, first published and last updated on 2025-04-02. The code is released under the MIT License and is open source, and public source and issue tracker links are available. Future work may extend the approach to other kinds of data tags.
Key features
Early tag lookup
Tag membership can be checked before the registries are fully loaded, which other mods can use during early initialization.
Jar-based tag reading
Tag data is read directly from the mod jars, the same way Suspicious Shapes reads vanilla data without waiting for game loading.
Membership tests
An EarlyTag object answers membership questions with a contains check against an Identifier, without requiring blocks or items to exist yet.
Lightweight library footprint
The whole library is small, around 16 KiB, so including it in another mod adds little weight.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Requirements
Dependencies declared by the latest file for each loader.
Required 1
Use cases
Who it’s for: Mod developers who need tag membership during early Fabric startup, before items, blocks and tags are normally available. Players do not need to do anything with it directly.
How it compares
Data Tables is a Fabric mod for 1.21.7 – 1.21.8 where the server is required and the client is optional, and it is open source under the MIT License. TextImport Mod is a Fabric client-side only mod for 1.21.11 and is not open source, so it does not cover early tag lookups for servers. General Custom Data is a Fabric option for 26.1 – 26.1.2 that is open source under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later, with the client or server optional.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Tags | Fabric | 1.21.1 – 1.21.5 | Client and server | 2025-04-02 |
| Data Tables | Fabric | 1.21.7 – 1.21.8 | Server required, client optional | 2025-08-07 |
| TextImport Mod | Fabric | 1.21.11 | Client-side only | 2026-03-24 |
| General Custom Data | Fabric | 26.1 – 26.1.2 | Client or server, optional | 2026-05-21 |
Questions
Does Early Tags need Fabric API?
Does Early Tags have to be installed on both sides?
Which game versions have Early Tags files?
In the catalog
Early Tags is one of 3,514 Library mods on ModsFinder, and one of 2,348 Library mods for Fabric. 15,307 mods support Minecraft 1.21.5.
More from falkreon
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What the author says
Early Tags makes data available WAY before it should be. It does this by manually reading jar contents in the same way that Static Data does, and parsing the vanilla data off-grid like Suspicious Shapes does. In this case, the implementation is an ultra-light one centered around tag Data (which Static Data will…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/early-tags
- Owner
- falkreon
- Published
- 2025-04-02
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2025-04-02
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15