Game Development ConstitutionSearch principles

Focused reference · Unreal Engine 5.8

Concrete automation patterns

unreal-editor-automation/references/patterns.md

Safe batch property editor

Input: folder, class, predicate, property, proposed value
Discover: Asset Registry / editor subsystem
Plan: old -> new table, invalid objects, count, dirty/source-control state
Apply: one named transaction for undoable edits
Save: only successfully changed packages selected by policy
Verify: reload/requery property, Data Validation, diff

Reject unknown property names, incompatible types, root-wide accidental scope, and an empty filter that broadens selection.

Naming validator and fixer

Keep validation and mutation separate. Validator reports naming failures without changing data. Fixer computes collision-free target paths, shows referencers and redirector consequences, then uses Asset Tools rename APIs. Never use filesystem rename.

Deterministic import pipeline

  1. Parse a versioned manifest.
  2. Validate source existence, destination paths, factories/options, and collisions.
  3. Import into staging using AssetImportTask/Asset Tools.
  4. Apply editor properties and build derived data where required.
  5. Run validators and representative opens/compiles.
  6. Promote/rename through Unreal APIs.
  7. Save intended packages and emit a manifest of results.

Editor Utility Widget wrapper

The widget owns filters, preview, progress, cancel, and user confirmation. A reusable service owns discovery/mutation. The widget never embeds the only implementation of a production pipeline.

CI data gate

Run Data Validation, then project automation tests, then a representative cook. Persist reports and engine logs. Treat missing reports, timeouts, partial processing, and unexpected dirty/output counts as failures.

Bounded MCP tool

Expose a typed operation with a narrow path root and dry_run=true default. The plan returns candidate object paths and requested changes. Apply requires explicit confirmation token/request, runs serially, validates, saves only its packages, and returns structured results. Do not expose an unrestricted “execute editor command” tool to compensate for missing schema.