diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 37bb49ba..6ce8143c 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -448,6 +448,7 @@ if (NOT ghc_filesystem_FOUND)
 else()
     message(STATUS "Using system ghc_filesystem")
 endif()
+add_subdirectory(libraries/qdcss) # css parser
 
 ############################### Built Artifacts ###############################
 
diff --git a/launcher/CMakeLists.txt b/launcher/CMakeLists.txt
index 1bfe9cbc..c6b9e380 100644
--- a/launcher/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/launcher/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1025,6 +1025,7 @@ target_link_libraries(Launcher_logic
     nbt++
     ${ZLIB_LIBRARIES}
     tomlplusplus::tomlplusplus
+    qdcss
     BuildConfig
     Katabasis
     Qt${QT_VERSION_MAJOR}::Widgets
diff --git a/launcher/minecraft/mod/tasks/LocalModParseTask.cpp b/launcher/minecraft/mod/tasks/LocalModParseTask.cpp
index 03b599ea..2263f8ec 100644
--- a/launcher/minecraft/mod/tasks/LocalModParseTask.cpp
+++ b/launcher/minecraft/mod/tasks/LocalModParseTask.cpp
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 #include <quazip/quazip.h>
 #include <quazip/quazipfile.h>
 #include <toml++/toml.h>
+#include <qdcss.h>
 #include <QJsonArray>
 #include <QJsonDocument>
 #include <QJsonObject>
@@ -290,37 +291,21 @@ ModDetails ReadNilModInfo(QByteArray contents, QString fname)
 {
     ModDetails details;
 
-    // this is a css file (why) but we only care about a couple key/value pairs from it
-    // hence this instead of a css parser lib
-    // could be made a lot better but it works(tm)
-    // (does css require properties to be on their own lines? if so, the code can get less horrible looking)
-    QString contentStr = QString(contents).trimmed();
-    int firstidx = contentStr.indexOf("@nilmod");
-    firstidx = contentStr.indexOf("{", firstidx);
-    int lastidx = contentStr.indexOf("}", firstidx);
-    int nameidx = contentStr.indexOf("name:", firstidx);
-    int descidx = contentStr.indexOf("description:", firstidx);
-    int authorsidx = contentStr.indexOf("authors:", firstidx);
-    int versionidx = contentStr.indexOf("version:", firstidx);
+    QDCSS cssData = QDCSS(contents);
+    auto name = cssData.get("@nilmod.name");
+    auto desc = cssData.get("@nilmod.description");
+    auto authors = cssData.get("@nilmod.authors");
 
-    if (nameidx != -1 && nameidx < lastidx) {
-        nameidx = contentStr.indexOf('"', nameidx);
-        details.name = contentStr.mid(nameidx + 1, contentStr.indexOf('"', nameidx + 1) - nameidx - 1);
+    if (name->has_value()) {
+        details.name = name->value();
     }
-    if (descidx != -1 && descidx < lastidx) {
-        descidx = contentStr.indexOf('"', descidx);
-        details.description = contentStr.mid(descidx + 1, contentStr.indexOf('"', descidx + 1) - descidx - 1);
+    if (desc->has_value()) {
+        details.description = desc->value();
     }
-    if (authorsidx != -1 && authorsidx < lastidx) {
-        authorsidx = contentStr.indexOf('"', authorsidx);
-        details.authors.append(contentStr.mid(authorsidx + 1, contentStr.indexOf('"', authorsidx + 1) - authorsidx - 1));
-    }
-    if (versionidx != -1 && versionidx < lastidx) {
-        versionidx = contentStr.indexOf('"', versionidx);
-        details.version = contentStr.mid(versionidx + 1, contentStr.indexOf('"', versionidx + 1) - versionidx - 1);
-    } else {
-        details.version = "?";
+    if (authors->has_value()) {
+        details.authors.append(authors->value());
     }
+    details.version = cssData.get("@nilmod.version")->value_or("?");
 
     details.mod_id = fname.remove(".nilmod.css");
 
diff --git a/libraries/README.md b/libraries/README.md
index 95be8740..4da11314 100644
--- a/libraries/README.md
+++ b/libraries/README.md
@@ -140,3 +140,11 @@ A TOML language parser. Used by Forge 1.14+ to store mod metadata.
 See [github repo](https://github.com/marzer/tomlplusplus).
 
 Licenced under the MIT licence.
+
+## qdcss
+
+A quick and dirty css parser, used by NilLoader to store mod metadata.
+
+Translated (and heavily trimmed down) from [the original Java code](https://github.com/unascribed/NilLoader/blob/trunk/src/main/java/nilloader/api/lib/qdcss/QDCSS.java) from NilLoader
+
+Licensed under LGPL version 3.
diff --git a/libraries/qdcss/CMakeLists.txt b/libraries/qdcss/CMakeLists.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..0afdef32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/libraries/qdcss/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.9.4)
+project(qdcss)
+
+if(QT_VERSION_MAJOR EQUAL 5)
+    find_package(Qt5 COMPONENTS Core REQUIRED)
+elseif(Launcher_QT_VERSION_MAJOR EQUAL 6)
+    find_package(Qt6 COMPONENTS Core Core5Compat REQUIRED)
+    list(APPEND qdcss_LIBS Qt${QT_VERSION_MAJOR}::Core5Compat)
+endif()
+
+set(QDCSS_SOURCES
+    include/qdcss.h
+    src/qdcss.cpp
+)
+
+add_library(qdcss STATIC ${QDCSS_SOURCES})
+target_include_directories(qdcss PUBLIC ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include)
+target_link_libraries(qdcss Qt${QT_VERSION_MAJOR}::Core ${qdcss_LIBS})
diff --git a/libraries/qdcss/include/qdcss.h b/libraries/qdcss/include/qdcss.h
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..2bcac36f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/libraries/qdcss/include/qdcss.h
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+#ifndef QDCSS_H
+#define QDCSS_H
+
+#include <QMap>
+#include <QString>
+#include <QStringList>
+#include <optional>
+
+class QDCSS {
+    // these are all we need to parse a couple string values out of a css string
+    // lots more in the original code, yet to be ported
+    // https://github.com/unascribed/NilLoader/blob/trunk/src/main/java/nilloader/api/lib/qdcss/QDCSS.java
+   public:
+    QDCSS(QString);
+    std::optional<QString>* get(QString);
+
+   private:
+    QMap<QString, QStringList> m_data;
+};
+
+#endif  // QDCSS_H
diff --git a/libraries/qdcss/src/qdcss.cpp b/libraries/qdcss/src/qdcss.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4426dcae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/libraries/qdcss/src/qdcss.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+#include "qdcss.h"
+
+#include <QRegularExpression>
+#include <QRegularExpressionMatch>
+#include <QRegularExpressionMatchIterator>
+
+QRegularExpression ruleset_re = QRegularExpression(R"([#.]?(@?\w+?)\s*\{(.*?)\})", QRegularExpression::DotMatchesEverythingOption);
+QRegularExpression rule_re = QRegularExpression(R"((\S+?)\s*:\s*(?:\"(.*?)(?<!\\)\"|'(.*?)(?<!\\)'|(\S+?))\s*(?:;|$))");
+
+QDCSS::QDCSS(QString s)
+{
+    // not much error handling over here...
+    // the original java code used indeces returned by the matcher for them, but QRE does not expose those
+    QRegularExpressionMatchIterator ruleset_i = ruleset_re.globalMatch(s);
+    while (ruleset_i.hasNext()) {
+        QRegularExpressionMatch ruleset = ruleset_i.next();
+        QString selector = ruleset.captured(1);
+        QString rules = ruleset.captured(2);
+        QRegularExpressionMatchIterator rule_i = rule_re.globalMatch(rules);
+        while (rule_i.hasNext()) {
+            QRegularExpressionMatch rule = rule_i.next();
+            QString property = rule.captured(1);
+            QString value;
+            if (!rule.captured(2).isNull()) {
+                value = rule.captured(2);
+            } else if (!rule.captured(3).isNull()) {
+                value = rule.captured(3);
+            } else {
+                value = rule.captured(4);
+            }
+            QString key = selector + "." + property;
+            if (!m_data.contains(key)) {
+                m_data.insert(key, QStringList());
+            }
+            m_data.find(key)->append(value);
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+std::optional<QString>* QDCSS::get(QString key)
+{
+    auto found = m_data.find(key);
+
+    if (found == m_data.end() || found->empty()) {
+        return new std::optional<QString>;
+    }
+
+    return new std::optional<QString>(found->back());
+}