KV Files Overview - Legends of Dota Redux

What is KV Format?

KeyValues (KV) is Valve’s lightweight key–value text format used throughout Dota 2 for data-driven configuration. A KV file consists of nested blocks delimited by braces, where each entry is either a "key" "value" pair or a named sub-block.

"RootBlock"
{
    "SimpleKey"    "SimpleValue"

    "NestedBlock"
    {
        "ChildKey"  "1"
    }
}

In Lua, KV files are loaded with the built-in LoadKeyValues function:

local abilities = LoadKeyValues("scripts/kv/abilities.kv")

-- Walk the top-level "skills" table
for abilityName, value in pairs(abilities.skills.main) do
    print(abilityName, value)
end

KV files live under scripts/kv/ inside the game addon directory. They are loaded once at game start and cached for the lifetime of the match.

File Reference

File	Purpose
`abilities.kv`	Master list of every ability that appears on the skill-select screen, divided into named brackets/categories.
`abilityDeps.kv`	Ability dependencies — if a player picks the ability on the left, they automatically receive the ability on the right.
`bans.kv`	Ability combination bans. Handles special-case bans such as grouped banned sets, spammable spell lists, and multicast/spell-echo exclusions.
`bot_skills.kv`	Priority-ordered ability lists that bots draw from when selecting their extra skills.
`bot_skills_imba_WIP.kv`	OP ability list for bots. Currently unused.
`camps.kv`	Defines neutral camp creature groups used by camp-spawning abilities (e.g. `spawn_small_camp`).
`consumable_items.kv`	List of items that can be consumed by the consumable item system.
`contributors.kv`	Credits data for the in-game credits page and gold-name cosmetics.
`hashes.kv`	Internal hash mappings.
`hero_perks.kv`	Maps perk categories (or specific abilities) to heroes for the perk-filter checkbox in the skill-pick menu.
`owners.kv`	Internal ownership mappings.
`perks.kv`	Determines which abilities Chen grants via his perk, and hero gender for QOP’s perk.
`randompicker.kv`	Used by the deprecated “True Random” ability. No longer active.
`sounds.kv`	Sounds that will be precached at game start.
`statuploadersettings.kv`	Web address used for uploading match statistics.
`towers.kv`	Classifies tower abilities by power level to keep mirror-tower loadouts balanced.
`ts_entities.kv`	Entities that must switch teams when a player switches teams.
`unique_skills.kv`	Abilities a bot team will only pick once — prevents multiple bots from taking the same unique ability.
`voting.kv`	Voting configuration.
`wearables.kv`	Wearable library data (currently only the Roshan MAGA hat).
`whatsup.kv`	Legacy welcome messages from the original Ash47 version. Unused.

Loading Pattern

Most KV files follow the same load-and-cache pattern in Lua:

-- GameMode init (e.g. baselodmode.lua)
self.abilityList  = LoadKeyValues("scripts/kv/abilities.kv")
self.bans         = LoadKeyValues("scripts/kv/bans.kv")
self.abilityDeps  = LoadKeyValues("scripts/kv/abilityDeps.kv")
self.botSkills    = LoadKeyValues("scripts/kv/bot_skills.kv")

Values are plain strings in KV; cast them when needed:

local flag = tonumber(abilities.skills.main["pudge_flesh_heap"]) -- 1

⌘I