Nuke.Unreal
Build Unreal apps in Style.
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Targets

Table of Contents

In Nuke (and consequently in Nuke.Unreal) a target is a delegate which can build a dependency execution graph with other targets. Nuke's main selling point is how these targets allow complex build compositions and how that can be controlled via command line or profile files.

Nuke.Unreal provides couple of universally useful targets associated with regular chores regarding Unreal Engine development. The above figure shows all convenience targets available and their relationship to each other. This also includes optional targets (coming from IPackageTargets, IPluginTargets and IAndroidTargets)

Note
All parameters specified here are optional and have a "sensible" default, unless they're marked required.

Global targets (UnrealBuild)

They're available for all project types just from using UnrealBuild as base class (UnrealBuild.Targets.cs or UnrealBuild.Templating.cs).

info

Prints curated information about project.

switch

Switch to the specified Unreal Engine version and platform. A CI/CD can call nuke with this target multiple times to deploy plugins for multiple engine versions for example.

  • Parameters:
    • --unreal REQUIRED
      • Can be simple version name like 5.5, a GUID associated with engine location or an absolute path to engine root.
  • Graph:

prepare

Run necessary preparations which needs to be done before Unreal tools can handle the project. By default it is empty and the main build project may override it or other Targets can depend on it / hook into it. For example the generated Nuke targets made by use-cmake or use-xrepo are dependent for prepare

generate

Generate project files for the default IDE of the current platform (i.e.: Visual Studio or XCode). It is equivalent to right clicking the uproject and selecting "Generate _IDE_ project files".

  • Graph:
  • Plans:
    • [ ] TODO: Provide more arguments for how the project is generated

build-editor

Shorthand for building the editor for current platform.

  • Parameters:
    • --editor-config default is developnment
  • Graph:

build

Uses UBT to build one of the main project targets (Game, Editor, Client, Server).

  • Parameters:
    • --config default is development
    • --target-type default is game
    • --platform default is current development platform
  • Argument blocks:
    • -->ubt see Custom UBT or UAT arguments
  • Graph:

cook

Cook Unreal assets for standalone game execution with UAT.

  • Parameters:
    • --config default is development
    • --platform default is current development platform
    • from `IAndroidTargets`
      • --android-texture-mode default is multi
  • Argument blocks:
    • -->uat see Custom UBT or UAT arguments
  • Graph:

clean

Removes auto generated folders of Unreal Engine

  • Graph:
    • Depends on:
      • clean-project
      • clean-plugins
    • Related to clean-deployment
  • Plans:
    • [ ] TODO: it may be too aggressive, use rather UAT?

run

Run an Unreal tool from the engine binaries folder. You can omit the Unreal prefix and the extension. For example:

> nuke run --tool pak --> ./Path/To/MyProject.pak -Extract "D:/temp"
> nuke run --tool editor-cmd --> ~p -run=MyCommandlet

Working directory is the project folder, regardless of actual working directory.

  • Parameters:
    • --tool
  • Argument blocks:
    • --> see Passing command line arguments to Unreal tools

run-uat

Simply run UAT with arguments passed after -->

  • Parameters:
    • --ignore-global-args
  • Argument blocks:
    • --> see Passing command line arguments to Unreal tools

run-ubt

Simply run UBT with arguments passed after -->

  • Parameters:
    • --ignore-global-args
  • Argument blocks:
    • --> see Passing command line arguments to Unreal tools

run-shell

Create console window with a UShell session. Only fully supported after UE 5.5

run-editor-cmd

Run an editor commandlet with arguments passed in after -->

  • Parameters:
    • --cmd
  • Argument blocks:
    • --> see Passing command line arguments to Unreal tools

ensure-build-plugin-support

Ensure support for plain C# build plugins without the need for CSX or dotnet projects. This only needs to be done once and you can check the results into source control. It will modify the main Nuke project itself, see Setting up for plugin development or [ImplicitBuildInterface] plugins of Nuke.Cola

If you used the remote script install method then you don't need to run this target as it's already configured for you.

UnrealBuild.Templating

These targets are used as a development aid for generating boilerplates. See Using third-party C++ libraries and Unreal boilerplate templates for full explanation. Because those sections explain in detail how to use boilerplate generator targets, they will be only listed here:

new-module --name ...
add-code --name ...
new-plugin --name ...
new-actor --name ...
new-interface --name ...
new-object --name ...
new-struct --name ...
new-spec --name ...
use-library --spec ... --library-type ...
use-xrepo --spec ...
use-cmake --spec ...
use-header-only --spec ...

Only special mention is use-library which is not recommended to be used manually, use either one of use-xrepo, use-cmake or use-header-only. use-library expects an extra --library-type which the former targets already fill in.

Packaging (IPackageTargets)

package

Package the project for distribution. Same as packaging the project from the editor.

  • Parameters:
    • --config default is development
    • --editor-config default is development
    • --platform default is current development platform
    • --output default is <project root>/Intermediate/Output(#custom-ubt-or-uat-arguments)
    • from `IAndroidTargets`
      • --android-texture-mode default is multi
  • Argument blocks:
    • -->uat see Custom UBT or UAT arguments
  • Graph:

Targeting Android (IAndroidTargets)

  • Plans
    • [ ] TODO: Android targets require some tidy-up and "nicer" interaction with SDK managers (both from the Android SDK Manager and Epic's AutoSDK). Some of the targets are still experimental and probably won't lose that status in the forseeable future

apply-sdk-user-settings

Epic in their infinite wisdom decided to store crucial project breaking build settings in a user scoped shared location (AppData/Local on Windows). This target attempts to make it less shared info, so one project compilation doesn't break the other one if they use different Engine versions and if these settings are not solidified in *Engine.ini.

  • Parameters:
    • the default for all of these are determined from engine version and the current user configuration. SDK and NDK versions and API levels can be simple numbers.
    • --android-build-tool-version
    • --android-sdk-path
    • --android-ndk-version
    • --android-java-path
    • --adnroid-sdk-api-level
    • --adnroid-ndk-api-level
  • Graph:

clean-intermediate-android

During Android development workflows involving debugging Unreal programs with the generated Gradle project in Android Studio, or developing Java files, Android Studio may modify the generated Gradle project caches in a way that is unexpected for Unreal tools and which may fail in consequent builds. This target clears only the intermediate files generated for Android tooling to avoid such scenario.

This target hooks itself into package and build targets so it's very rare that it has to be executed manually.

sign-apk

In some cases UAT or UBT fails to sign the generated APK with the data provided from [/Script/AndroidRuntimeSettings.AndroidRuntimeSettings] @ *Engine.ini, so this target does that manually directly using the Android tooling.

  • Parameters:
    • the default for all of these are determined from engine version and the current user configuration. SDK and NDK versions and API levels can be simple numbers.
    • --android-build-tool-version
  • Graph:

install-on-android

Install the result of packaging or build on a connected android device, same as the "install APK" generated batch files, but more robust. This may provide an alternative to "Launch on device" feature available in Editor but for cases when for some cursed reason that is not supported by the project, or for cases when a bug only happens in distributed or almost distributed builds.

Warning
Assumes ADB is in PATH
  • Parameters:
    • the default for all of these are determined from engine version and the current user configuration. SDK and NDK versions and API levels can be simple numbers.
    • --android-build-tool-version
  • Graph:

debug-on-android

Run this project on a connected Android device from the result of packaging or build with the ActivityManager. This may provide an alternative to "Launch on device" feature available in Editor but for cases when for some cursed reason that is not supported by the project, or for cases when a bug only happens in distributed or almost distributed builds.

Warning
Assumes ADB is in PATH

java-development-service

Attention
This is highly experimental and only developed for specific cases, but with ambitious intents.

This was an attempt to sync Java files copied into the generated Gradle project back to their original source whenever they're changed. At the moment this is very experimental, may not cover all edge cases, and if I ever return to this problem, I'll rewrite this to use symlinks instead which is set up by another target which needs to be run only once (instead of this acting as a file-system watcher service).