Documentation

FiveM Resource Structure

fxmanifest.lua, the stream/ folder, and what FiveM needs to load.

FiveM loads resources from a folder (or ZIP) that must contain an fxmanifest.lua (or legacy __resource.lua) at the root. For a vehicle addon the minimal structure looks like this:

my_vehicle/
├── fxmanifest.lua
└── stream/
    ├── my_vehicle.yft
    ├── my_vehicle_hi.yft       # high-LOD, optional but recommended
    ├── my_vehicle.ytd
    ├── vehicles.meta
    ├── handling.meta
    ├── carvariations.meta
    └── carcols.meta

A minimal fxmanifest.lua for a vehicle addon:

fx_version 'cerulean'
game 'gta5'

data_file 'VEHICLE_METADATA_FILE'  'stream/vehicles.meta'
data_file 'HANDLING_FILE'          'stream/handling.meta'
data_file 'VEHICLE_VARIATION_FILE' 'stream/carvariations.meta'
data_file 'CARCOLS_FILE'           'stream/carcols.meta'

files {
  'stream/*.yft',
  'stream/*.ytd',
}

Forgetting to declare data_file entries means the meta files are never loaded — the vehicle will spawn but may behave incorrectly or use default handling.

Discussion

FiveM Resource Structure

Documentation

FiveM Resource Structure

fxmanifest.lua, the stream/ folder, and what FiveM needs to load.

FiveM loads resources from a folder (or ZIP) that must contain an fxmanifest.lua (or legacy __resource.lua) at the root. For a vehicle addon the minimal structure looks like this:

my_vehicle/
├── fxmanifest.lua
└── stream/
    ├── my_vehicle.yft
    ├── my_vehicle_hi.yft       # high-LOD, optional but recommended
    ├── my_vehicle.ytd
    ├── vehicles.meta
    ├── handling.meta
    ├── carvariations.meta
    └── carcols.meta

A minimal fxmanifest.lua for a vehicle addon:

fx_version 'cerulean'
game 'gta5'

data_file 'VEHICLE_METADATA_FILE'  'stream/vehicles.meta'
data_file 'HANDLING_FILE'          'stream/handling.meta'
data_file 'VEHICLE_VARIATION_FILE' 'stream/carvariations.meta'
data_file 'CARCOLS_FILE'           'stream/carcols.meta'

files {
  'stream/*.yft',
  'stream/*.ytd',
}

Forgetting to declare data_file entries means the meta files are never loaded — the vehicle will spawn but may behave incorrectly or use default handling.

Discussion