How to Use Console Commands in Valheim

Valheim's console is a single text box at the bottom of the screen that runs typed commands. It's powerful — almost everything in the game is accessible from it — but the interface is bare-bones and there's no in-game tutorial. This guide walks through using it end-to-end: opening it, finding commands, passing parameters, and recovering from typos.

If you haven't enabled the console yet, the prerequisite is short: add -console to Valheim's Steam launch options and restart the game. Cheat commands additionally need devcommands enabled each time you load a world.

Open the console

Load into a world. Press F5. A small text input appears at the bottom of the screen.

Press F5 again to close it. You can leave it open while you play — it doesn't pause the game or block input — but most people open it, type a command, and close it again.

Run your first command

With the console open, type:

Press Enter. A wall of text scrolls past — every command the game knows about, in alphabetical order. That's the source of truth for what's available, even though it's not the most readable. Our searchable command reference is the same data with descriptions and examples.

The anatomy of a command

Most Valheim commands follow one of three shapes:

1. Bare commands (no arguments)

Toggle something on or off, or perform a one-shot action. No parameters. Examples:

2. Commands with one argument

Take a single value — usually an ID, a player name, or a number:

3. Commands with multiple arguments

The most common multi-argument command is spawn:

Arguments are positional and separated by spaces. The level parameter is 1-indexed: spawn Boar 1 1 gives you one normal boar (no stars), spawn Boar 1 2 gives you a one-star boar, and so on. See the spawn items guide for the full rules.

Where IDs come from

Most commands that take an ID expect an internal Valheim identifier, not the display name. Internal names are usually PascalCase (no spaces) and sometimes don't match what the game shows you. A few examples:

Wood for Wood, Iron for Iron — simple materials are usually obvious.
SwordIron, BowFineWood, ArmorIronChest — weapons and armor combine the piece type and the tier.
gd_king for The Elder, Dragon for Moder, GoblinKing for Yagluth — bosses use dev codenames that don't match their in-game names.

Don't guess. Use the appropriate index:

Console keys you'll actually use

Key	What it does
`F5`	Open / close the console.
`Enter`	Run the typed command.
`Up / Down`	Cycle through previously-typed commands.
`Tab`	Autocomplete a command name from what you've typed so far.
`Esc`	Close the console without running anything.

The Up-arrow history is genuinely useful — repeating the same spawn command with a small tweak is faster than retyping the ID each time. Tab-complete fills in partial command names, but it does not complete item IDs.

Common gotchas

Case matters. spawn wood does nothing; spawn Wood works. IDs are case-sensitive.
Cheats reset on world reload. Every time you log back in, re-run devcommands before the cheat commands work again.
No undo. spawn Troll at your base is forever (or until that troll dies). There's no rewind. Use killall to clean up.
Quiet failures. Most commands fail silently if the ID is wrong. If a spawn didn't appear, check your ID spelling and case before trying anything else.

Recipes — common things people want to do

Restock building materials

Skip a bad night

The argument is in seconds (1800 = 30 in-game minutes), but the exact mapping to day/night cycle varies. See the skiptime reference for details. Or use tod 0.5 to jump directly to midday.

Get back to base

Teleports to world coordinates. Coordinates are visible in pos before you teleport away — write them down first.

Where to go next

The complete console commands guide — every command category in detail.
How to fly, god mode, and no-clip — movement and invincibility cheats.
How to spawn items in Valheim — deep dive on the spawn syntax.