Installing mods?

[Rich]

How do I install mods, without using any modloader or 3rd party sw? I downloaded the following mod: https://basedmods.eth.limo/mod/RqUi923eQrXNWdCHL8-giJ3sz_Nil3PjSyzK81lkNpQ/

and I got two folders with subfolders, containing two .json each and 3 .png each
shouldn't be more advanced than that I just extract the folders and files to the correct directory?

[Amberbaum]

You need to use XNbcli to merge your png file with the correct json file to create a xnb file, because the game's files are made up of xnb files.

You won't get far with modding your game if you don't use SMAPI. The modding scenen is built around it and the dev even endorsed it.

[Maya-Neko]

You're making your life way harder by not using modloaders. Handling manual installations wrong can easily corrupt your game and removing mods gets just way more tedious, on top of finding faulty mods getting way harder due to the missing modularity of a modloader.

Modloaders however leave your vanilla game intact, as they rather inject the mods directly into the game on startup and thus only mess with the game as long as it runs, what makes it so modular and easy to use in the first place, as it is just about throwing the mod into a mod folder and then just forget about it, until you need to remove or update it.