Hold Start or Back on your gamepad for a configurable duration to open a menu directly. A short press opens the button's normal menu.

Gamepad only. Default behaviour is fully preserved.

Inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2's hold-Start-to-open-map mechanic.

NexusMods page

• Skyrim Special Edition or Anniversary Edition
• SKSE64
• Address Library for SKSE Plugins

Mod manager (recommended):

1. Install the requirements above.
2. Install HoldFast via your mod manager.
3. Launch Skyrim via SKSE.

Manual:

1. Install the requirements above.
2. Copy HoldFast.dll and HoldFast.ini to Data\SKSE\Plugins\.
3. Launch Skyrim via SKSE.

Edit Data\SKSE\Plugins\HoldFast.ini:

[General]
; Duration in seconds a button must be held to trigger its long-press action (default: 0.5, max: 5.0)
fHoldDuration=0.5
; Long-press action for the Start (Menu) button. Short press performs the button's normal function.
; Valid values: Map, System, Quests, Stats, Inventory, Magic, Favorites, TweenMenu, Wait, Bestiary, CharacterSheet, None (case-insensitive)
sButtonStartAction=Map
; Long-press action for the Back (View) button. Short press performs the button's normal function.
; Valid values: Map, System, Quests, Stats, Inventory, Magic, Favorites, TweenMenu, Wait, Bestiary, CharacterSheet, None (case-insensitive)
sButtonBackAction=System

Valid actions:

Logs are written to:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\HoldFast.log

• Git
• CMake 3.21+
• vcpkg — set VCPKG_ROOT in your environment

• LLVM/Clang (clang-cl, lld-link, llvm-lib, llvm-rc, llvm-mt)
• xwin — downloads the Windows SDK and MSVC CRT headers/libs
• Ninja

# Arch / CachyOS
sudo pacman -S clang lld llvm ninja

# Install xwin (requires Rust/cargo)
cargo install xwin

# Fetch Windows SDK + MSVC CRT headers to ~/.xwin (one-time, ~700 MB)
xwin splat --output ~/.xwin

Note: On first CMake configure, cmake/toolchains/clang-cl-cross.cmake creates TitleCase symlinks inside your xwin installation (e.g. Advapi32.lib → advapi32.lib). The originals are untouched. This is required because lld-link is case-sensitive but CommonLibSSE-NG references libs with mixed-case names.

• Visual Studio 2022 with Desktop development with C++

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/codepuncher/HoldFast.git
cd HoldFast

Edit .env and set SKYRIM_MODS_FOLDER to your mod manager's staging folder:

# Vortex (Linux, Steam):
SKYRIM_MODS_FOLDER="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Vortex Mods/skyrimse"

# MO2 (Linux):
# SKYRIM_MODS_FOLDER="$HOME/MO2/mods"

./scripts/build.sh
# or directly:
cmake --preset release-linux
cmake --build --preset release-linux

The DLL lands in build/release-linux/HoldFast.dll.

./scripts/deploy.sh
# or directly (deploy.sh sources .env for you; cmake does not):
source .env && cmake --workflow --preset deploy

Copies HoldFast.dll, HoldFast.pdb, and HoldFast.ini into $SKYRIM_MODS_FOLDER/HoldFast/SKSE/Plugins/.

cmake --preset release-windows
cmake --build --preset release-windows

The DLL lands in build/msvc/Release/HoldFast.dll.

Unit tests use Catch2 and run without SKSE or Skyrim installed.

cmake --preset test-windows
cmake --build --preset test-windows
ctest --preset test-windows

Prerequisites:

• go install github.com/evilmartians/lefthook@latest
• clang-format and clang-tidy (part of LLVM)
• cmake-format (sudo pacman -S cmake-format on Arch/CachyOS; pip install cmakelang elsewhere)
• shellcheck (sudo pacman -S shellcheck on Arch/CachyOS)

lefthook install

CMake writes compile_commands.json to the build directory. Symlink it to the project root:

ln -sf build/release-linux/compile_commands.json compile_commands.json

The .clangd file sets --target=x86_64-pc-windows-msvc so clangd resolves Windows headers correctly on Linux.

Recommended plugins: nvim-lspconfig with clangd, clangd_extensions.nvim.

git submodule update --remote lib/commonlibsse-ng
git add lib/commonlibsse-ng
git commit -m "chore: update CommonLibSSE-NG submodule"

Triggered via workflow_dispatch with upload_to_nexus: true and the version input set (e.g. 1.0.0). One-time setup:

1. Upload your first file manually via the Nexus Mods web UI to create the file group.
2. Add to your repository:
   • Secret NEXUSMODS_API_KEY — your Nexus Mods API key
   • Variable NEXUSMODS_FILE_GROUP_ID — the file group ID

• Inspired by the hold-Start-to-open-map mechanic in Red Dead Redemption 2
• SKSE by the SKSE Team
• Address Library for SKSE plugins by meh321
• CommonLibSSE-NG by alandtse and contributors

MIT — see LICENSE.