Minecraft creator Mojang is making a selection of the game’s code libraries open source.

The Swedish studio plans to gradually open up a number of libraries from the Java build of Minecraft - as opposed to the newer, Windows Store version build on C++ - for use in mods or standalone game development.

“Libraries are little parts of the game engine,” said Java developer Nathan “Dinnerbone” Adams, in a blog post. “We're making some of the self-contained libraries that Minecraft uses open source. Anyone can pick them up and use them in their own game.”

“Basically, anyone can go in there and they can contribute and they can help improve our game engine. Or, if they're making their own game, they don't have to rewrite these little parts. They can just use ours, which have been tried and tested because we're a very popular game, apparently!”

The first two libraries released are the Brigadier command engine and DataFixerUpper, a tool that updates old in-game data to work with the latest build. The former manages in-game commands typed into the text field, checks them for errors and keywords, then runs the intended function.

DataFixerUpper, on the other hand, is a necessity for keeping older pieces of data compatible as Minecraft updates and expands. If a chunk of the world hasn’t been touched in years, this library reads its data and updates it to keep in line with how the latest build manages information.

Both Brigadier and DataFixerUpper are available on Mojang’s GitHub repository.