ArisenEngine

ArisenEngine is a package-centric microkernel engine and editor stack for learning, research, and high-performance runtime architecture. The engine stays intentionally thin: workspaces declare packages, packages provide the real functionality, and ArisenBuildTool generates the runnable/editor/testable outputs from that package graph.

Requirements

Component	Version
Visual Studio	2022 with MSBuild and C++23 toolchain
Windows SDK	10+
CMake	3.29+
.NET SDK	9.0+
Vulkan SDK	Latest recommended
Python	3+

Repository layout

• Arisen/ArisenKernel - kernel contracts, bootstrapping, package loading, service registry, subsystem lifecycle
• Arisen/External/ArisenBuildTool - workspace/package discovery, dependency resolution, project and solution generation
• Arisen/Development/PackageGame - canonical development workspace
• Arisen/Development/PackageGame/Local/com.* - engine, editor, rendering, and testing packages under active development
• Arisen/Editor/ArisenLauncher - launcher/editor workspace
• Arisen/BindingGenerator - managed/native binding generation
• Arisen/Docs/Architecture - source-of-truth architecture and build documentation

Canonical workspace

The main development workspace is:

• Arisen/Development/PackageGame

Its source-of-truth manifest is:

• Arisen/Development/PackageGame/manifest.json

The workspace currently defines these main profiles:

• Editor - editor-enabled authoring workspace with com.arisen.editor
• Development - standalone runtime profile with diagnostics/profiler enabled
• Production - standalone runtime profile without profiler instrumentation
• RHIVulkanTesting - test runner plus Vulkan native test package

The base workspace package set includes the core kernel/runtime, ECS, DAG, desktop platform, resources, rendering, and Vulkan backend packages.

Build the main workspace

Run commands from the repository root.

Build all profiles from the canonical workspace:

Arisen\Scripts\Windows\build_workspace.bat

Build a specific profile/configuration:

Arisen\Scripts\Windows\build_workspace.bat --config Debug --profile Development
Arisen\Scripts\Windows\build_workspace.bat --config Debug --profile Editor
Arisen\Scripts\Windows\build_workspace.bat --config Release --profile Production

Build an explicit workspace manifest:

Arisen\Scripts\Windows\build_workspace.bat --manifest Arisen\Development\PackageGame\manifest.json --config Debug --profile Development

build_workspace.bat performs the current end-to-end workspace pipeline:

• locates and initializes the Visual Studio developer environment
• refreshes generated bindings
• builds ArisenBuildTool
• resolves workspace packages and generates per-profile solutions
• builds generated native projects with CMake when present
• restores NuGet packages and builds the generated solution with MSBuild

Build the launcher/editor workspace

Build the launcher/editor workspace with:

Arisen\Scripts\Windows\build_launcher_all.bat

This generates the launcher workspace, builds native components in Debug and Release, then builds the managed launcher solution in Debug and Release.

Refresh bindings only

Arisen\Scripts\Windows\run_binding_generator_debug.bat
Arisen\Scripts\Windows\run_binding_generator_release.bat

Current test workflow

This repository does not currently expose a standard dotnet test / xUnit / NUnit workflow.

The active testing path is package-level workspace generation through ArisenBuildTool test, exposed by build_workspace.bat --package.

Example:

Arisen\Scripts\Windows\build_workspace.bat --package com.arisen.rhi.vulkan.native --config Debug

The canonical workspace manifest also includes a concrete testing profile:

• RHIVulkanTesting

Generated outputs

Generated .sln, .csproj, native build glue, and workspace output under .arisen/ are derived artifacts produced by ArisenBuildTool. Treat package metadata, workspace manifests, and source code as the source of truth instead of hand-maintaining generated files.

Further reading

For architecture and build details, read:

• Arisen/Docs/Architecture/ProjectManagement.md
• Arisen/Docs/Architecture/ArisenBuildTool.md
• Arisen/Docs/Architecture/ConfigurationFormats.md
• Arisen/Docs/Architecture/PackageLifecycle.md
• Arisen/Docs/Architecture/ServiceRegistry.md
• Arisen/Docs/Architecture/Rendering.md