Any way to use private mods?

[Mugnum]

Is uploading a mod as public, awaiting verification, and subscribing to it via website -- the only way of making a mod? Or is there an option for installing them locally? (With maintaining progression.)

I'm particularly interested in changing existing harmless mods, without having "legal" issues with the original uploader. For example, taking an existing Music Replacer, and disabling a bunch of tracks, or patching in volume balancing.

I've been doing these personal tweaks in L4D and PD2 a lot, and can't see a way in DRG this time, unless missing something.

[GreyHound]

You can set your mod's Visibility to Hidden (basically Private, you can invite other players to check out your mod though) on mod.io when you upload it or edit it, the setting is in the Profile section. This makes verification a bit more complicated, so you'll have to check your changes in Sandbox for quite a while.