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Getting Started

Terro Fergius edited this page Jun 7, 2026 · 3 revisions

Getting Started

Install the plugin and run your first validation in under 5 minutes.

Naming conventions follow Allar's UE5 Style Guide, the standard most Unreal projects use.

Installation

Step 1 — Copy the plugin

Copy the AssetStandardsValidator folder into your project's Plugins/ directory:

YourProject/
  Plugins/
    AssetStandardsValidator/   ← here
      AssetStandardsValidator.uplugin

Step 2 — Compile

The full version ships with source code and must be compiled before first use.

  1. Right-click your .uproject file → Generate Visual Studio project files
  2. Open the solution and build the Development Editor configuration
  3. Or use Unreal Build Tool directly: Build.bat YourProjectEditor Win64 Development

Note: If you installed from a precompiled package (Engine/Plugins/Marketplace), skip this step — the binaries are already included.

Step 3 — Enable in the editor

Open Edit → Plugins, find Asset Standards Validator under the QA category, and enable it. Restart the editor when prompted.

What you see right away

After installation, ASV shows a small colored badge on assets in the Content Browser — no configuration needed. The badge appears as soon as a scan has run:

  • Orange badge — the asset has at least one issue
  • No badge — clean, no issues found

Badges update automatically after each scan. Without a scan they don't appear — run one manually first (see below).

Content Browser filter chips (P0–P3, rule shortcuts) and folder violation badges in the left panel

First scan

Step 1 — Open the panel

Go to Tools → Asset Standards Validator → Open ASV Panel, or click the ASV button in the Level Editor toolbar.

Level editor toolbar — Run Full Audit / Open Standards Validator

Step 2 — Run a scan

Click Run Full Audit in the panel toolbar. The plugin scans all assets in /Game by default — no config needed. Results appear in the list below the toolbar.

Each row shows: asset path, rule ID, description of the problem, and suggested fix.

The Standards Validator panel — full violation list, severity-colored, with toolbar and filters

Severity levels

Every issue has a priority level:

Level Meaning Examples
P0 Pipeline-breaking Missing prefix that breaks references, Blueprint compile error
P1 Major violation Asset in wrong folder, wrong texture compression
P2 Style violation Folder not PascalCase, missing variable tooltip
P3 Info Suggestions without direct impact

Start with P0 and P1 — they are most likely to break something in the pipeline. Use the Severity filter in the panel to focus on them.

Fix issues

Click Fix on any row to apply an automatic fix. Not every rule has an auto-fix — see Auto-fix Guide for the full list.

Warning: Rename and move fixes are not undoable with Ctrl+Z. The engine creates a redirector at the old path, but the rename cannot be rolled back. Always check out your files in Perforce or commit in Git before running batch fixes. Property fixes (texture settings, Blueprint variable renames) are undoable — Ctrl+Z rolls back the entire batch at once.

Automatic scanning

Note: Triggers are off by default. After installation, the plugin does nothing automatically — it only runs when you click Run Full Audit. To enable automatic scanning, add triggers to your config (see Configuration).

Available triggers:

Trigger When it fires
OnSave When an asset is saved
OnStartup When the editor opens
OnAssetCreated When a new asset is created
OnAssetRenamed When an asset is renamed
OnPIE When Play In Editor starts
PreBeginPIE Just before Play starts, while the editor world is still whole — for level/world checks
Manual On demand — from the panel or Tools menu

Add triggers in your ASVCheckerConfig DataAsset under the Triggers array. See Configuration for setup steps.

Content Browser integration

Right-click any asset or folder in the Content Browser for quick actions:

Right-click multiple selected assets — Fix N assets

Right-click a folder — batch fix with per-validator asset counts

Action What it does
Validate Asset Runs all active checkers on the selected asset(s) immediately
Fix → [rule name] Applies auto-fix for a specific rule to all selected assets that have it
Open in Panel Opens the ASV panel and focuses it on this asset (single selection only)
Open Config Opens the checker config DataAsset that covers this asset
Ignore Asset Adds the asset to the global ignore list — it will be skipped by all future scans

Right-click a folder:

Action What it does
Validate Folder Runs all active checkers on every asset in the selected folder(s)
Ignore Folder Adds the folder to the global ignore list — all assets inside are skipped

Ignored assets and folders are stored in Project Settings → Plugins → Asset Standards Validator → IgnoreAssets / IgnoreFolders.

Custom configuration

The plugin works without a config using built-in defaults. To customize rules, scan roots, or triggers:

  1. Right-click in the Content Browser → Miscellaneous → Data Asset
  2. Select ASVCheckerConfig as the class
  3. Add validators, configure their properties, and add triggers

The config is picked up automatically — no registration step needed. See Configuration for the full reference.

CI integration

For pipeline automation, use the ASV commandlet. See Commandlet arguments in Configuration.

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