Cooking, chunking, and audit

Prove cook inclusion

A reference working in PIE is insufficient. For every asynchronously loaded asset:

1. Identify the Primary Asset, label, directory, map, or explicit cook rule that includes it.
2. Cook the target platform.
3. Inspect Asset Audit, cooked output, or staging manifests.
4. Launch a packaged build without editor-only loose content.
5. exercise the cold-load path and its failure handling.

Use Project Settings > Game > Asset Manager for type rules. Use Tools > Audit > Asset Audit and Reference Viewer to inspect management and dependency chains.

Primary Asset Labels

Use UPrimaryAssetLabel to assign rules to explicit assets, collections, or a directory tree. Labels can define priority, chunk ID, and cook rule.

Important 5.8 constraint: Blueprint subclasses of PrimaryAssetLabel do not work for chunking. Use the provided class or a native C++ subclass when adding metadata.

Chunking

• Chunk 0 is the default base content.
• Positive chunk IDs create separately assignable content groups when chunk generation is enabled.
• A Primary Asset's management rules can assign referenced secondary assets.
• Higher-priority management can win when more than one Primary Asset claims content.

Design chunks around install/patch/DLC boundaries, not folder aesthetics. Duplicated shared dependencies, circular ownership, and accidental hard references can defeat the intended layout.

Release checks

• Enable Only Cook Production Assets when development-only primary assets must fail a production cook.
• Compare Asset Audit across representative builds.
• Verify chunk availability order on the real delivery platform.
• Treat rule and label changes as packaging changes requiring a full staged test.