Motivation

Currently, the build system is opaque. It's split across Rust, Python, GitHub Actions, etc and a lot of code is outdated/irrelevant or buggy.

Additionally, to even get to the point where you can launch a project, you have to clone a minimum of three repositories and symlink them all over the place.

We need a build system where everything is in one place, so that it's maintainable, and which handles all these tasks for us.

Just

Although any build system would work, I think just makes the most sense -- it's lightweight, lets us use any language we want for tasks, has VSCode integration, and is easy to read and setup. It's also particularly "rusty".

File Structure

• public: Public plugin assets like gdscript, .gdextension, UI scenes, etc that we need shipped directly with the plugin
• rust: Rust code to produce our plugin DLL
• editor: Patchwork's C++ editor module necessary to build with Godot
• build: Our entire build environment, ignored by git.
  • plugin: The built plugin folder, intended to be dropped in a project's addons
    • native/*: The various binaries generated by Rust
  • godot: A copy of the Godot repository with Patchwork's editor module linked inside
  • moddable-platformer/threadbare: A testing project we can easily dev on

Environment Variables/Config

• PATCHWORK_DEBUG: Whether we should build Patchwork (Rust) in debug mode
• GODOT_DEBUG: Whether we should build Godot in debug mode
• {PROJECT}_URL: Git URL of the project (threadbare or moddable-platformer)

Tasks

Setup:

• make_build_dir: Makes ./build

Cloning:

• acquire_project {PROJECT}: Acquire build/{PROJECT}
  • Requires: make_build_dir
  • Clone if it doesn't exist already
• acquire_godot: Acquire build/godot
  • Requires: make_build_dir
  • Clone if it doesn't exist already

Linking:

• link_project {PROJECT}: Symlink build/{PROJECT}/addons/patchwork <=> build/plugin
  • Requires: acquire_project
  • Allows us to launch a project while developing the plugin
• link_editor: Symlink build/godot/modules/patchwork_editor <=> editor
  • Requires: acquire_godot
  • Allows us to build Godot with the editor module linked in
• link_public Symlink build/plugin/public <=> public
  • Requires: make_build_dir
  • Ensures our public assets like gdscript, images, etc are included in the plugin build folder

Building:

• build_godot: If necessary, build Godot with Patchwork with Scons
  • Requires: link_editor
• build_patchwork: Run cargo build on Rust

Plugin setup:

• make_plugin_dir: Make build/plugin
  • Requires: make_build_dir
• copy_libs: Find Rust-generated DLLs and copy them to build/plugin/native
  • Requires: make_plugin_dir
  • Replaces build.rs, post_build.rs
• sign_libs: Sign Mac .dylib files and whatever else (? idk how this works yet)
  • Requires: copy_libs
  • Hopefully replaces some github workflows(?)
• sign_plugin {SERVER_URL}: Generate build/plugin/plugin.cfg and insert the correct server URL in patchwork.cfg
  • Requires: make_plugin_dir
  • Replaces update_version.py.

Cleaning:

• clean_godot: Clean Godot (scons --clean)
• clean_patchwork: Clean Patchwork (cargo clean)
• clean_plugin: Clean plugin DLLs etc
• clean_project {PROJECT}: Reset a project state (reset the repository, remove .patchwork, and reset patchwork.config)
• clean: Clean everything

Running:

• launch_project <PROJECT> [-u <SERVER_URL>]: Launch project with built Godot
  • Requires: build_patchwork, build_godot, link_{PROJECT}, sign_plugin

Targets

• Launch threadbare/moddable-platformer (debug/release) for the current platform
• Hot-reload Rust plugin

Stretch Goals

• When starting a project in dev mode, also start up a local instance of automerge-rust-sync-server and automatically link it in plugin.cfg.
• Use Rust watcher to hot-reload rust plugin automatically
• Generate releases using this build system (i.e. move as much code from github actions to running these tasks as possible), since release issues are annoying to debug in general.
  • Automatically edit README.md upon release