ShieldMeBruh

🛡️ Shield Me Bruh!

Automatic shield pairing and auto-equipping for one-handed weapons in Valheim.

Never get caught in battle with an empty off-hand! Shield Me Bruh! is a sleek quality-of-life mod that seamlessly auto-equips your favorite shield whenever you draw any one-handed weapon (swords, axes, maces, spears, clubs, or knives).

⚔️ How It Works

• 🖱️ Mark Your Shield: Open your Player Inventory and Middle-Click your desired shield. A special Shield Me Bruh! icon appears on the item icon to confirm it is your designated combat shield.
• 🔄 Unmark or Swap: Middle-Click the shield again to unmark it. If you middle-click a different shield while wielding a 1H weapon, your character will instantly equip the new shield!
• ⚔️ Automatic Combat Ready: Whenever you equip an eligible one-handed weapon, Shield Me Bruh! automatically equips your marked shield. Unequipping or switching to a 2H weapon safely stows your shield.
• ❌ Exclude Specific Weapons: Don't want your shield to deploy when using utility tools like woodcutting axes? Middle-Click any 1-handed weapon to mark it with a red X. Equipping an excluded weapon leaves your off-hand free with no movement speed penalties! Multiple weapons can be excluded simultaneously.
• 💾 Persistent Across Sessions: Your shield selection and weapon exclusions persist across inventory moves, chests, game saves, world transitions, and character logouts.

🕹️ Controls Summary

Action — Input / Control — Description

Mark Shield — Middle-Click (in Inventory) — Designates the clicked shield as your auto-equip shield.

Deselect Shield — Middle-Click (on Marked Shield) — Removes the mark and disables auto-equip for that shield.

Quick Swap — Middle-Click (on New Shield) — Instantly marks and auto-equips the new shield if a 1H weapon is held.

Exclude Weapon — Middle-Click (on 1H Weapon) — Toggles the red X exclusion badge so the shield will not auto-deploy for this weapon.

🛡️ Advanced Safeguards

• 📦 Container Move Protection: Quick-moving items into containers (Ctrl + Left Click) or bulk transfers will never accidentally strip the mark from your shield.
• ⚡ Zero Lag Overhead: Uses clean Harmony prefix/postfix hooks during item equip events with zero per-frame background polling.

🤝 Verified Mod Compatibility

Mod — Compatibility Status

AdventureBackpacks — 🟢 Fully Supported (Equipped backpacks & quick transfer work seamlessly)

FastItemTransfer — 🟢 Fully Supported

Equipment & Quick Slots — 🟢 Fully Supported

Epic Loot — 🟢 Fully Supported (Enchanted shields remain marked)

Jewelcrafting — 🟢 Fully Supported

🌐 Available Translations

🇺🇸 English (Default)

Want to help translate Shield Me Bruh? Community translations are welcome! Please submit a PR on GitHub or stop by our Discord.

📥 Installation

Mod Manager (Recommended)

1. Install via R2ModMan or Thunderstore Mod Manager.
2. Dependencies (BepInExPack, Jotunn (JVL)) are installed automatically.

Manual Installation

• Copy ShieldMeBruh.dll to your Valheim/BepInEx/plugins directory.

🔌 For Mod Developers & AI Coding Agents

• 🤖 AI Agent Rules & Invariants: Guidelines for AI assistants (Cursor, Claude, Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini).
• ⚠️ Integration Policy: ShieldMeBruh is a self-contained mod without a public API. Do not use reflection or Harmony patches on internal classes.
• 💡 Feature Requests: If you need integration hooks or functionality, open a Feature Request or reach out in our Discord.

🔒 Anonymous Telemetry, Error Reporting & Privacy

Shield Me Bruh includes lightweight, privacy-first telemetry and error reporting to help monitor mod stability, diagnose unhandled bugs, and track active version adoption across game updates.

• 100% Anonymous: We never collect personal data, Steam IDs, IP addresses, character/world names, or file system paths. Stack traces from errors are automatically sanitized to strip local user directories.
• Granular Player Control:
• Anonymous Telemetry (Opt-In): Tracks version adoption and session launches. Defaults to unchecked / disabled when first loaded (Enable Anonymous Telemetry = false).
• Error Reporting (Opt-Out): Captures sanitized mod crash diagnostics to rapidly identify and fix bugs. Defaults to enabled (Send Error Reports = true) with one-click opt-out.
• Data Disclaimers: Hover over any toggle in