UnityInvoker

Unity Invoker is a small library that lets you create Unity processes (in order to do batch processing, builds, etc) easily.

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• Installation & Usage
• Simple, fluent API
• Notes: Error handling, Changing Unity's executable path, Unity activation

import { invokeHeadlessUnity } from '@mitm/unityinvoker';

await invokeHeadlessUnity()
    .projectPath(path)
    .executeMethod('MyEditorScript.Run')
    .run(message => console.log(message)); // that's it

👉 See also: @mitm/chuck, a fully-featured webservice that builds asset bundles.

👉 See also: @mitm/assetbundlecompiler, fluent JavaScript API to create AssetBundles from any files.

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📦 Installation & Usage

Requirements:

• Node.js, version 7 preferred
• ⚠️ An activated installation of Unity on the machine ⚠️
  • If Unity is not installed in the standard path, read Changing Unity's executable path
  • You must activate Unity if not already done, even with a free plan, read Unity activation

Install it via the npm registry:

yarn add @mitm/unityinvoker

🔗 Simple, fluent API

The API has (almost) an 1:1 mapping with Unity's Command Line Interface options, meaning that you can refer to these docs and translate the option names into methods... except for a few cases where Unity's CLI really sucks (sorry):

• The incoherently-named options with a dash like -force-clamped are obviously camelized: forceClamped() ;
• Some options were merged into a simple method, ie. -force-gles32 becomes useRenderer(RendererType.OpenGLES, 32) ;
• Same as before, options like -buildLinux32Player and variants are merged in: buildLinuxPlayer(LinuxPlayerArch.x86, '/path') (same goes for the other OSes).
• -disable-assembly-updater got two methods: disableAssemblyUpdater() and disableAssemblyUpdaterFor('assembly1.dll', 'assembly2.dll').

If you are using an IDE that supports TypeScript declarations, you'll have intellisense and documentation on the methods.

invokeUnity()

The API has two entry points, this one launches a normal Unity instance by default (ie. not in batch mode):

import { invokeUnity } from '@mitm/unityinvoker';

// Use run() to launch Unity (breaks the fluent chain by returning a Promise)
await invokeUnity().run();

// You probably always want to tell Unity which project to open:
await invokeUnity().projectPath('/path/to/the/project').run();

// You can pass custom options too:
await invokeUnity({
    'my-custom-option': 'value'
}).withOptions({ 'or-using-withOptions': true }).run();

// You can watch Unity's log in real time, but you have to tell Unity to not use 
// it's famous Editor.log file by using '-' as logFile value:
await invokeUnity().logFile('-').run(message => console.log(message));

invokeHeadlessUnity()

This entry point is probably the one you're looking for, it provides an Unity instance with .logFile(null).batchmode().noGraphics().quit().

import {
    invokeHeadlessUnity,
    LinuxPlayerArch, OSXPlayerArch, WindowsPlayerArch,
    RendererType
} from '@mitm/unityinvoker';

// No need for logFile('-') to have realtime logs anymore:
await invokeHeadlessUnity().run(message => console.log(message));

// All methods (except batchmode, logFile, noGraphics, quit, that are enabled in headless mode)
await invokeHeadlessUnity()
    .withOptions({ 'my-option': true })
    .buildLinuxPlayer(LinuxPlayerArch.Universal, '/path/to/project')
    .buildOSXPlayer(OSXPlayerArch.Universal, '/path/to/project')
    .buildTarget('linux64')
    .buildWindowsPlayer(WindowsPlayerArch.x64, '/path/to/project')
    .cleanedLogFile()
    .createProject('/path/to/project')
    .editorTestsCategories(...categories)
    .editorTestsFilter(...filteredTestsNames)
    .editorTestsResultFile('/path/to/file')
    .executeMethod('MyEditorScript.Run')
    .exportPackage({
        folderPaths: ['Project/Folder1', 'Project/Folder2'],
        packageFilePath: '/path/to/my.unitypackage'
    })
    .useRenderer(RendererType.OpenGLES, 32)
    .forceClamped()
    .forceFree()
    .importPackage('/path/to/my.unitypackage')
    .password('pa$$w0rd')
    .projectPath('/path/to/the/project/to/open')
    .returnLicense()
    .runEditorTests()
    .serial('MY-SE-RI-AL')
    .silentCrashes()
    .username('me@me.me')
    .disableAssemblyUpdater()
    .disableAssemblyUpdaterFor('Some/Assembly.dll', 'Another/Assembly.dll')
    .run(message => console.log(message));

💡 Notes

Error handling

What could possibly go wrong?

UnityInvoker will catch abnormal Unity process termination and throw an error in that case. The error is an instance of UnityCrashError (exported on the main module) and its prototype looks like:

class UnityCrashError extends Error {
    public readonly message: string; // Exception message
    public readonly unityLog: string; // Unity Editor log (contains crash information)
}

The logs will also be dumped to you system temporary folder (ie. /tmp) in a file named unity_crash.abcompiler.log (the complete path will be reported in the error's message).

Changing Unity's executable path

By default, UnityInvoker will try to find Unity's executable on the expected locations. The library will look at the following paths:

• /opt/Unity/Editor/Unity – Debian / Ubuntu with the official .deb package
• /Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/MacOS/Unity – MacOS
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Unity\Editor\Unity.exe – Windows, Unity x86
• C:\Program Files\Unity\Editor\Unity.exe – Windows, Unity x64

If you have a custom installation of Unity on a "non-standard" path (ie. you have multiple versions installed), you can tell UnityInvoker where to look:

import { setUnityPath } from '@mitm/unityinvoker';

// given that you define the environment variable UNITY_EDITOR_PATH, to avoid hardcoded path:
setUnityPath(process.env.UNITY_EDITOR_PATH);

Unity activation

Unity is a proprietary software that requires to be activated with a valid account, even if that's not necessary for building asset bundles. This library does not handle activation, meaning that you must already have an activated version of Unity on the machine.

Building asset bundles, does not requires a paid account. You can log in with your free Personal license.

Activation via Unity's CLI is possible too (for automating installation for example) but is somewhat broken from times to times, and does not works with personal licenses. So, given you have a paid accound, you can do:

~$ /path/to/Unity -quit -batchmode -serial SB-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX -username 'JoeBloggs@example.com' -password 'MyPassw0rd'