In the theory of smooth representations of a p-adic reductive group, the p-modular setting is a relatively new branch, which started around 30 years ago. Many strong methods from the complex case do not seem to carry over, which makes the mod p theory distinctly different (and more difficult) than the complex theory. In the past few years, however, there have been promising developments using derived methods. In this direction, I will report on joint work with Lucas Mann. I will explain how to produce a full six functor formalism for mod p representations of p-adic Lie groups. As an application, I will show how the formalism produces an involution on dg-Hecke algebras and explain why it restricts on the Ext-algebra to the involution constructed by Ollivier--Schneider and Schneider--Sorensen. If time permits, I will define a character for each admissible representation, which is the analog of the distribution character in the complex theory.