I’ve been collecting and working on resources for people interested in learning MOO programming, experimenting with their own worlds, or building tools for existing MOOs. I wanted to put them together in one place for anyone curious about getting started.
This includes projects I’ve worked on, tools maintained by other developers, and tutorials written by people who have been sharing MOO knowledge for decades. There’s material here for complete beginners as well as experienced programmers.
LEARNING IN YOUR BROWSER
- MOO Academy — (Created by me) A learning playground for MOO programming in the browser. Work through guided lessons, run and modify examples, inspect objects, and experiment in separate sandbox worlds. No account or MOO server installation is required. It’s an educational environment with LambdaMOO and ToastStunt profiles, rather than a complete multiplayer server. The source is on GitHub.
- Learn MOO Programming videos — (Created by me) A video series covering server setup, programming basics, properties, verbs, debugging, and related topics. Some setup material reflects older server versions.
BEGINNER TUTORIALS
These tutorials introduce programming through objects you can build and change. They’re preserved in the LambdaMOO Programming Resources repository, with attribution to their original authors. I maintain this repo on Github.
- Yib’s Pet Rock — A gentle introduction that starts with a simple object and develops its behavior. Covers understanding code, experimenting, and debugging as part of learning.
- Winding Duck — Another practical project, building an object with progressively more interesting behavior.
- Colin’s Way Easy Guide — An approachable explanation of objects, properties, verbs, permissions, and programming. The repository also preserves the complete original HTML edition.
- Steven Owens’ LambdaMOO Programming Tutorial — A more extensive introduction to MOO concepts and the programming environment, with larger examples.
- MOO Programming Tips — Short explanations and examples originally written for SpinnMOO.
These are older tutorials, so specific object numbers, commands, and available utilities can differ between worlds. The underlying lessons remain useful.
MANUALS, GUIDES, AND REFERENCE MATERIAL
- Updated LambdaMOO Programmer’s Manual — (Maintained by me) An expanded reference based on the LambdaMOO 1.8 manual, covering the language, data types, statements, tasks, and built-in functions.
- ToastStunt Programmer’s Manual — (Maintained by me) The reference to keep nearby when working with ToastStunt, including its language extensions and additional built-ins.
- LambdaMOO Background — An explanation of how servers, databases, objects, properties, and verbs fit together.
- MUDVerse MUD Dictionary — (Maintained by me) Useful when you encounter unfamiliar MUD, MOO, or broader MU* terminology.
ENGINES AND STARTER DATABASES
The server runs the world; the core database supplies its initial objects, commands, and programming utilities. You’ll generally want both when setting up a conventional MOO.
- LambdaMOO — The original server family behind the MOO language and programming environment.
- ToastStunt — A modern descendant of LambdaMOO through Stunt, with additional language features, networking capabilities, and built-in functionality.
- Stunt — ToastStunt’s predecessor, useful for understanding the development of features such as multiple inheritance, anonymous objects, maps, and HTTP support.
- LambdaCore 2018 — A downloadable snapshot of the classic LambdaCore database.
- ToastCore — An updated LambdaCore-derived database intended for ToastStunt.
- LisDude’s core database collection — Additional educational, RPG-oriented, minimal, and historical cores, including enCore, RPGCore, and OmegaCore.
For a new ToastStunt project, ToastCore is a natural starting point. The historical cores are also useful for studying how other people organized their worlds.
CLIENTS AND EDITING TOOLS
- Dome Client — (Created by me, this is what we use on Sindome) A browser-based MUD/MOO client with an integrated development environment for editing verbs and properties. This is the maintained successor to the older Dome Client.
- Mudlet — A general-purpose client for Windows, macOS, and Linux, with scripting, mapping, and customization.
- MUSHclient — A Windows MU* client with scripting, plugins, aliases, and triggers.
- BeipMU — Another Windows client worth considering for connecting to text worlds.
- Local Editing support — (Maintained by me) MOO-side support for editing through compatible clients. Your core may already include this functionality.
- Getting Started with moo.el — A preserved guide to connecting and editing through Emacs, for people interested in that workflow.
The MUDVerse client guide covers additional desktop, browser, and mobile options.
REUSABLE CODE AND PACKAGES
- MOO Package Manager — (Created by me) Tools written in MOO for distributing, reviewing, installing, and maintaining packages on ToastStunt-derived worlds. The project is in open beta.
- Code Scanner — (Created by me) MOO code for identifying common programming mistakes and maintainability problems.
- Sindome Scheduler — (Created by me, Johnny, etc) An example of a system for scheduling work to happen later.
Reading existing code can be a useful next step after the introductory tutorials: you get to see how small language features become larger systems.
PARSING, BROWSER RUNTIMES, AND DATABASE ANALYSIS
These are especially relevant if you want to build development tools or inspect a larger codebase.
- MOO in JavaScript — (Created by me) An educational interpreter for running MOO code in browsers and Node.js. It powers MOO Academy’s local execution and uses Tree-sitter MOO for parsing.
- Tree-sitter MOO — (Created by me) A grammar and parser for MOO verb code, with Node.js bindings and a WebAssembly parser for browser applications. Useful for editor integrations and code analysis.
- ToastStunt DB Extractor — (Created by me) Reads ToastStunt Format 17 checkpoint files and extracts objects, properties, and verb source into structured data. This lets scripts inspect a database without connecting to the running MOO.
- MOO Code Graph — (Created by me) Combines extracted database data with parsed MOO code to support browser-based exploration and semantic analysis for potential bugs and code quality issues.
- Anatomy of a LambdaMOO DB file and Anatomy of a ToastStunt DB — References for understanding the checkpoint file formats themselves.
MOO EXAMPLES AND AI TRAINING RESOURCES
- MOO for LLMs — (Created by me) A public reference and training corpus intended to help language models read, write, and repair MOO code. It includes explanations, examples, deliberately incorrect code, and evaluation tasks. It’s also useful for humans studying examples and for developers testing parsers against a varied collection of MOO code.
The goal is to make good MOO material easier for future models and coding tools to learn from. The examples already have a practical use in validating MOO parsing.
COMMUNITY, ARCHIVES, AND RESOURCE INDEXES
- MUDVerse MOO Resources — (Maintained by me) A central index of servers, cores, documentation, learning resources, and tools.
- LambdaMOO Programming Resources on GitHub — (Maintained by me) The collected tutorials, manuals, reusable code, and preserved historical material referenced throughout this post.
- LisDude’s MOO Resources — A broad collection of servers, cores, clients, security documentation, FAQs, patches, and historical material.
- ToastStunt Discord — A place to discuss ToastStunt, MOO programming, and related projects with other users and developers.
If you’re starting from scratch, I’d suggest trying MOO Academy, working through Yib’s Pet Rock or Winding Duck, and keeping the relevant programmer’s manual open as you experiment.
Please add other useful resources to this thread, especially tutorials, examples, and tools that have helped you learn. There’s a lot of knowledge spread across the MOO community, and it’s worth making it easier to find.
