Installing and Managing Resources

Overview

Resources are the modular units that add features to a FiveM server — from chat and player spawning to entire roleplay frameworks. Each resource is a folder containing Lua (or JavaScript/C#) scripts and a manifest file. This guide covers installing community resources, writing a minimal manifest, and managing which resources start with your server.

Directory Structure

All resources live under server-data/resources/. Resources must be organized into category folders using square brackets:

resources/
  [standalone]/
    my-hud/
      fxmanifest.lua
      client.lua
      server.lua
  [esx]/
    esx_vehicleshop/
      fxmanifest.lua
      ...
  [system]/
    ...

The bracketed category folder name is arbitrary and only used for organization. FXServer discovers resources by scanning subdirectories, not by category name.

The fxmanifest.lua File

Every resource must have an fxmanifest.lua in its root folder. A minimal example:

fx_version 'cerulean'
games { 'gta5' }

author 'YourName'
description 'Short description of this resource'
version '1.0.0'

client_scripts { 'client.lua' }
server_script 'server.lua'
shared_script 'shared.lua'

Key fields:

For resources with multiple files, use a table:

client_scripts {
  'config.lua',
  'client/*.lua'
}

Installing a Community Resource

Most community resources are distributed as GitHub releases or ZIP files.

1. Download and extract the resource folder.
2. Rename the folder if needed — the folder name is the resource name used in ensure.
3. Place it in the appropriate category folder under resources/.
4. Verify it contains fxmanifest.lua. If it contains __resource.lua instead, that is the legacy manifest format and still works, but consider using updated versions.

Starting a Resource

Add an ensure line to server.cfg:

ensure my-hud

ensure both starts the resource on server boot and restarts it if it crashes. The resource name must match the folder name exactly (case-sensitive on Linux).

Order matters for dependent resources. If esx_vehicleshop depends on es_extended, then es_extended must be ensured first:

ensure es_extended
ensure esx_vehicleshop

Restarting a Resource Without Rebooting

From the txAdmin live console or the FXServer console:

restart my-hud

Or to stop and start:

stop my-hud
start my-hud

This is useful during development to pick up script changes without a full server restart.

Debugging Resource Failures

If a resource fails to start, check the txAdmin console for errors. Common causes:

• Syntax error in fxmanifest.lua or a Lua file
• Missing dependency (another resource that must be ensured first)
• File path in the manifest does not match the actual filename (Linux is case-sensitive)

The log file at resources/[system]/[monitor]/monitor.log also contains startup errors.

Related

• Configuring Your Server with server.cfg
• ESX and QBCore Frameworks: Overview and Installation
• Streaming Custom Maps and Assets
• Troubleshooting Common FiveM Server Errors