Testing in AGS I soon find out what I need most.

Sim blender for checking family, accelerating pregnancy, setting a job.
Day setter so my sim has work and not a day off while testing a work based mod.
Bat Box to clear off stupid invisible jump rope causing routing issues.
Default eyes (no not a mod but I can't stand even testing with Maxis eyes *shiver* )
No sim loaded + smarter EP check.

And that is all apart from the mod that I am testing.

mods and game fix folder has 143 files. this does not inclued modded objects....that would take some major time to sort out.

Shamefully I have 96 Mods Mostly the important mods by Pescado to protect my game
1. TwoJeff's mods,
2. Squinge mods
3. Inge mods
4. Numenor / Mary Lou
5. Merola
6. Carrigon
7. Cyjon's
8. joninmobile / also known as The Ninth Waves
9. Gummilutt
10. Moghughson
11. Lord Darcy
12. Monique
13. Mootilda
14. BoilingOil
15. Chris Hatch
16. Hunter
17. DanTheMann15
18. SlimSlice
19. Worf_84
Just to name a few of the Modders who mods I use /are a must have in my game, also it depend on what mods I need and the purpose for it.
I so respect all of these modders and even the "new modders" on the scene their work and time spend and sharing with the Sims community, have added a Great deal to the interactions of the game.

Sorry too many mods to name.

AL fixes, Inteen, anti redundancy, no trash tokens, nounlinkondelete, shaders, shadow black box fix, smarter EP check.

Ghosts fix, less penalty for being late for work, less sleeping when eating, batbox, no townie memory loss on move in, no weather reactions, simblender, community lots - skill gaining & sleeping enabled, skyfix, supernatural fixes, smarter lights, wants and fears sanity, woohoo ltw fixed, youth genie wish re-enabled.

Bunch of the lovely new face sliders.

Small fixes such as no shade eyes from M&G, no home from work animation, no supernatural idles, font & spelling fixes, small graphics fixes, etc.

Also, if I play a certain theme - be it island, medieval, modern, etc. there could be certain mods to alter Sims' behavior. For example, the island and medieval ones are going to have spongebath mod in, the modern one a bunch of servo tweaks and so on.

@Simonut Shamefully because you have so few or you think too many? Because many of us have 1-2 thousand.

With the no shade eyes for M&G I switched that to one where they only do it now and then, I really like it. It's by tunaisafish.

The safest way to add mods is reading about each one, see if the creator mentions any conflicts, but the ones to help prevent corruptions should be the first to add. Ask questions if you're not quite sure what a mod does or if it's actually useful.

There are a lot of things I don't mod out, basically it's things that annoy me when a sim needs to do something and you can't cancel the action they're involved in, like kids start cops and robbers when they should be heading to the bus. You cancel the queue, the kids keeps shooting imaginary spitballs at each other, running around and faking death while the bus driver honks away, wakes the neighborhood, then drives away. Do the kids get upset? Nope, they start up another game of cops and robbers while mom is pulling out her hair, the baby is screaming and you're screaming at the kids (actually at pixels on the monitor who don't listen to you anyway). (:

It is not a shame to have few files. I have essential mods plus some annoyance fixes total 185 files. I am satisfied with them and don't find I am missing any more. I like the game as it is now. Everyone mods his own game by their liking.

That's why I prefer to download mods from MTS and MATY and other similar sites that have support threads for their downloads. You easily see whether other users have had problems with that mod.

I have tons of mods, but don't have mod folders. I rarely get a conflict, and when I do I usually can figure out the source. I just go by memory, and do a search in my downloads folder to find things

I do have a folder I stuck on my one drive with my essential mods that go in every folder no matter what as an emergency measure in case they go away, and for convenience. Some mods are highly dependent on what hood type I am playing at the moment. I usually remember if I forgot one, once I start playing because some kind of annoyance will pop up to invariably remind me.

Off the top of my head, I have insimenator, simblender, and Chris Hatch's baby dressing mod. Those go in every folder. As well as the breastfeeding one.

Beck's stairs ones for toddlers, and the no empty pot for the toddler potty as well, along with the one where they don't puke on you (annoys me to no end, I never bottomed out on hygiene because a baby burped up on me). I like Mog's tv one, and the parking lot things for community lots, where you can park there and cars pop up in parking spots. Makes things more real for me. I like the ones that put bodyshop siders in create a sim as well by Aaroneous. There are a multitude I use in general. I always use all the no townie ones, and the ones that keep witches from coming to community lots, and the pickpocket too. Due to the drain on computer resources from those two things. I have some of Pescado's like no unlink on delete etc. and the one that prevents corruption if Mrs Crumplebottom is made a vampire for instance, (forget what it is called) plus I ban her period, for double measure "cannot stand her!" I have to have Inge's teleporter too.

I use visitor controller when my downloads folder starts to get bigger, and I have mods to allow for bigger households. I usually tend to anywhere from 12 to 20 sims in a household. I also have no Rod Humble either.

I need to ban the gypsy as well. I also have the ones that allow stuff to be unlocked (like freetime hobby items etc.)

I have a lot of things that allow certain Ikea items to be repositoried off of other things. And of course CEP.

And yes quite a few of Gummi's too

I have Monique's individual aging mod. That is an essential one for me. The only one that still works as well. I have a control this sim mod. It allows a little more power in certain circumstances than just making someone selectable.

I have Bo's breastfeeding mods add ons and no sim loaded mod.

And in my main hood that I never ever build in for sharing, I have the extended in laws mod, and the other one that goes with it. (It seems to cause a super duper hug problem if you have it in and you share a lot if the other person doesn't have it.) My build folder has no red line on pause mod, as well as mootilda's lights on/off things. That is about it.
Pescado's batbox is something I use as well.

I only have 8 folders. If I didn't have UC I would have a multitude of other folders as well for AGS but that is neither here nor there.

I do have some mods that are dependent upon hoods, like castaways stuff for when I did the tropical hood. And default replacements for medieval stuff. But mainly the list is for essential mods. Then there is a whole bunch of small ones as well.

They number in at least the hundreds, I am sure and would not surprise me if there were a thousand.