The following third-party rules regarding permissible content must be followed

1. the Steam Subscriber Agreement
   
2. the Steam Community Rules and Guidelines
   
3. the Terraria Rules & Guidelines

In addition, content owners in the tModLoader community are subject to additional rules to ensure a safe environment for the community. Failure to abide by these rules will result in loss of mod publishing privileges. In extreme cases, loss of your Steam account is also a possibility if the infraction also violates the Steam Subscriber agreement. It is to be noted that tModLoader moderators actively report malicious mods to Steam for account deactivation in accordance with the Steam Subscriber agreement.

These rules apply to all modding content uploaded to the tModLoader community. This includes private and friends only content.

Rule 1: Do not silently sabotage the user’s experience
Rule 2: File system and network access must be sensible
Rule 3: No code obfuscation
Rule 4: No Steam API abuse

If you believe you have reasonable need for an exemption to one of these rules, please use one of the following options to request an exemption.

1. (PREFERRED)Contact workshop moderation support in the tModLoader Discord Server before publishing
   
2. Publish the item as Private or Friends-Only visibility and notify potential moderators of the intent to obtain a specific exemption in the Steam Workshop item's Developer Comments. A developer will review the comment and may request further information to understand if an exemption can be provided.

Updates to mods which operate in gray areas may take notably longer to be approved.
Guidelines associated with the rules are provided as follows:

Rule 1:

• Do not destroy the user’s world/player/settings etc suddenly and without warning
  
• Do not intentionally make tML or other mods appear buggy

Mods which are very clearly joke mods may be permitted on a case-by-case basis.

Rule 2:

• Do not access or modify files outside of the tModLoader user data directory
  
• Do not launch external programs
  
• Do not instruct users to download external software

Rule 3:

• Do not distribute, package, or call into native libraries that have not received an exception on the tModLoader Known Natives List as visible in the tModLoader Discord Server.
  
• Interpreting code written in other languages is generally not permitted, but may be acceptable if the script sandbox host API is limited to a select set of in-game functions

Rule 4:

• Do not interact with Steam on behalf of the user (outside the context of the tModLoader/Terraria game)