BackyardAIOnlineByafExport

This tool allows you to export your online characters from Backyard.ai (BYAF extension).

You are welcome to propose ideas in the Issues section or submit Pull Requests.

Important

The "Parties" feature from Backyard.ai is not supported. Characters belonging to parties will simply be separated from the party.
I currently don’t plan to support this feature, but you are still welcome to open a Pull Request if you wish to implement it.
Anyway, I believe BYAF file format does not support Parties at the moment.

Requirements

• You must have NodeJS installed in your environment (version >= 20.x but < 25.x)
• If you want to contribute:
  • Clone the repo using the command git clone https://github.com/Lufou/BackyardAIOnlineByafExport.git
  • Go to the folder of the repo you've just cloned (with the cd command)
  • Here, execute the command npm install to install required dependencies.
• If you just want to use it:
  • Grab the online-backyard-exporter file from the latest release
  • Extract the archive where you want

How to run it ?

Very easy:

• First, make sure to be logged in on Backyard.ai in your web browser
• Then, just go to the folder you've cloned the repo or extracted the release archive into and execute the command node . <options>

Options

Option	Alias	Type	Default	Description
--debug	-d, --verbose	boolean	false	Enable debug logs (display more messages during execution)
--output-dir	-o	string	./output	Define the output folder for generated BYAF files
--exit-on-failure	-e	boolean	true	Exit the program if something fails
--browser	-b	string	null	Specify the web browser to extract the session cookies from. Format: BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]. Name of the browser to load cookies from, optional keyring name prefixed with '+', optional profile prefixed with ':', and optional container prefixed with '::' ('none' for no container (default), 'all' for all containers)
--messages	-m	boolean	false	Export chat messages
--cookies	-c	string	null	Specify cookies string

FAQ

Q: Why does the tool need my cookies?

A: In order to access your online character list and data, you must be logged in to Backyard.ai.
The tool uses your cookies to authenticate with Backyard.ai and export your characters.

Q: What are the supported browsers for cookies auto using?

A: Supported browsers are: Brave, Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Opera, Thorium, Vivaldi, Firefox, Librewolf, Zen, Safari, Orion.
Since mid-2024, Chromium based browsers cookies on Windows, sometimes can't be decrypted by external programs. You will need to use the --cookies to set the cookies if you are not connected on Backyard.ai on another non-Chromium based browser.

Q: How does the tool use my cookies?

A: You can check how it works in the file cookies.js.
It accesses your browser profile folder, reads the database containing your saved cookies, if the cookies are encrypted tries to decrypt them, and then uses main.js to extract only the cookies for the backyard.ai domain — nothing else.

The cookies are not modified, not sent anywhere, and are only used for authenticated requests to the Backyard.ai website.

Q: Do you plan on adding feature X?

A: Planned features are listed in the TODO file.
If you have an idea or a bug to report, please open an Issue.
You’re also very welcome to submit Pull Requests.