Create CLI

[webbertakken]

We'd like to create a CLI so that the action can use it instead of having its own logic.

Later this CLI would move to its own repository.

The CLI can later be used from all CI environments as well as locally.

Scope:

• Includes general architecture
• Does not include any builder functionality

AC:

• Being able to work locally, so that we can start adding functionality.

[webbertakken]

Probably it's a good idea to first fully convert builder to Deno and then start with the CLI.

If nobody disagrees then game-ci/unity-builder#413 becomes a pre-requisite for this issue.

[bdovaz]

@webbertakken I see that this initiative is dead.

We are evaluating using game-ci's Docker images, but our environment is Azure DevOps, which does not integrate with game-ci.

If there were at least an intermediate layer with a CLI that could be consumed through NPM, that would work for us.

I understand that this issue addresses this topic.

Is there anything that can be done to help?

[webbertakken]

@bdovaz thank you for your message.

I agree with your observations and can see that some base layer of CLI would be very helpful.

Currently the best thing we have for porting to other CI systems is for devs to literally do the same as we implemented in our GitLab CI example. It has all the necessary scripts and it being kept up-to-date.

Is there anything that can be done to help?

I mean, sure! However converting unity-builder into a CLI-first approach requires a significant amount of work and a lot of context is required, that we can't simply have Claude Code do for us (yet), even if we load the context from our Discord conversations into it.

Donations go a long way to having some of the maintainers free up time to move it forward. Technically the CLI would still be the most pivotal move we can make for GameCI, as it opens up the doors to three major things:

• Agnostic of CI system
• Agnostic of Game Engine
• Community plugins for specific use cases

Hope that is a good enough answer for you for the time being :)

[bdovaz]

I was referring more to helping with development, but seeing what you say about it requiring a lot of context and experience of how the whole game-ci system is set up...

I don't really know what state the CLI is in either (I only see a "dead" roadmap from years ago: Roadmap v3.0.0), because there is something in this repository but no commits since December last year.

If I can contribute with simple efforts appropriate for someone who doesn't have much experience with the depths of the system...

Regarding GitLab, I understand that you are referring to these scripts? https://gitlab.com/game-ci/unity3d-gitlab-ci-example/-/tree/main/ci

[webbertakken]

@bdovaz

Regarding GitLab, I understand that you are referring to these scripts? https://gitlab.com/game-ci/unity3d-gitlab-ci-example/-/tree/main/ci

Yup, those are the scripts I was referring to.

If I can contribute with simple efforts appropriate for someone who doesn't have much experience with the depths of the system...

That is really super appreciated.

Right now I think there are no real simple efforts to start off with.

We need to make the initial port from unity-builder and make it look like the code in this repo (this repo is in fact an earlier port that is abandoned and we have since decided to go with Bun instead of Deno, which does simplify a bunch because of node compatibility).

I'd be happy for anyone to try and take a stab at it:

Take a look at the CLI architecture that was created in this repo. The idea is to reapply that very architecture to the latest commit from unity-builder. When we have a working version it would replace 98% of all code in unity-builder, and that action would simply call the CLI to do what it needs to.

So while it will become a lot more user friendly, it's not really super straight forward to migrate, as it's actually an architectural change and it has a fair few moving parts.

Open to different approaches too. As long as they have a plan for migrating all unity-builder functionality over, and replacing the logic by the CLI - one way or another.

[bdovaz]

@webbertakken I've been looking at it and would like to contribute, but once there is a “base” set up to work on. That is, I see that the action has many options:

https://github.com/game-ci/unity-builder/blob/main/action.yml

If someone with more in-depth knowledge of this repository and unity-builder could set up an MVP in this repository with a cli build command with the minimum possible parameters, I could then iterate and add more and more parameters until it is 1:1 with that action.yml.

But as an first effort for someone who doesn't have much experience in how all this is set up and who is not very comfortable with TypeScript, as is my case, I find it too much.