Git support on Package Manager

That is not a valid Git URL. That's simply a web address to a github page. The real address would be:
https://github.com/mob-sakai/GitPackageTest.git

 

That was discussed in another thread. You should raise your voice there too

https://forum.unity.com/threads/custom-package-with-git-dependencies.628390/

 

ok so without using external plugins, is not possible to use git url as dependencies inside a package.

 

Yeah, I forgot to mention, you need something like this to resolve Git dependencies of a package:
https://github.com/mob-sakai/GitDependencyResolverForUnity

 

OK Currently I chose to use OpenUPM as solution.

 

I would really like to define a non-root git package (specifically to publish a Unity project git repo, with the package containing only the Asset directory).

I saw this mentioned earlier in the thread but didn't find a follow-up.
I thought GitHub packages could be a workaround for this, but couldn't get Unity to play nice with them.

I feel like this is a really strong use case for existing code / new code that should include examples (my use case).
Is support for this planned any time soon?

 

You can use the git subtree split command, like described here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25070968

I decided for the sake of simplicity to not include the complete project, but just the relevant folder in the git repo. This of course means, that you need to create a project on your own before including the package, but also makes it really easy to include the repo as a submodule, cuts right to the case and does not have any unity version changes and so on. If you need an example setup for that, take a look at https://github.com/supyrb/signals

 

@maximeb_unity Will it use git feature like sparse checkout?

Or unity need to invent new approach?

 

Actually I would like to make a request that, git package in manifest and dependency should be pulled with the git system. And, importantly, upm should unlock the pulled package folder so we could edit and commit package with the git command

So if the UPM would developed to be more align with git system (such as, just using sparse checkout with the included package), it would be more likely that my request will be more possible to do

What I hope is, when we include any package into our project with git, we could also edit and develop that package in the same time as developing the project, instead of having project for develop package separated from the actual project, and we could also commit the package with just git and don't need to switch back and forth between local and git in the manifest. We could just use git in package local folder and still share project for other people in the team

 

You can already kind of do that with git submodules. You just need to update one copy and pull in all the others.

 

In the current workflow, whenever you try to edit anything that was pulled from UPM, it will often got overridden and lose. And you can't easily commit it to git. For developing package you need to have separate project. Which is not practical

Imagine you have working on large project. You have separate some utility into separate package then include it back into your project and working with your team. Then your team found a bug in that package. Then the whole process are broken, you need to switch your package manifest url to your local, pull it into project, fix it, push it, switch back, etc, etc, etc, etc. The current workflow is totally annoying. If you really have did it you would understand so, please.

Just try to explain to you make me recall the frustration so please

 

We're doing the exact workflow as I described above (submodules) and there is no manifest change required so unity does not actually update or overwrite our code from new pulls. Updating the package is now as easy as pulling in the latest changes. Only for AssetStore publishing we open up the standalone project.

 

That is the point you misunderstand

The thing I suggest is that you don't require to pull latest change because the latest change would be developed in the project directly. Only the package consumer in other project or developer in other machine will need to pull it. But you who would be both the package developer and project developer won't need, the package can be seemlessly developed at the same time as the project

We are currently talking about UPM git package, not the asset store package

 

Not really following here as that's exactly what this allows us. Yes, the updates on other machines are not automatically done by Unity, but we're using git anyways and updating submodules just comes with a normal project pull in that case.

1. Dev A works on a feature in a package (submodule), commits and pushes it. This updates the commit hash reference for git
2. Dev B pulls the project, package updates automatically.
3. Dev B works on a fix in the package, pushes it
4. Dev A pulls, got latest changes from Dev B

All of our UAS packages are also UPM packages (in private repos)

 

This is the point. By your workaround you just don't use UPM in your main project anymore. That's what I request it to change. We should use UPM everywhere in unity and just make it work with git directly. And then you just come to push your workaround without understanding the point. I try not to say this but please stop man

I can workaround in anything, we can workaround in everything, but that's not a practical solution. Practical solution is unity should just adopt it as official feature

This declare your total misunderstand about UPM

UPM may be look like asset store package with the same folder structure and capability. But unlike asset store package, it not included directly into your asset folder. It just stay outside and just being linked into project. And so we could develop it in separate folder and separate git repo, it don't related to the project repo and don't event need to setup the submodule. Just import it into manifest and then just worked

 

Sorry if I came across as too harsh, I was just trying to suggest an alternative, until this feature could be implemented.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I understand it:
- "Assets" has your project's content
- "Library" contains all cached files as well as the downloaded packages (via the Package cache)
- "Packages" contains the manifest and potential custom packages.

How would you expect the suggested workflow to work when you hit "Reimport All"? If they open up the possibility to edit packages, I'd guess all your changes would be lost as the Library folder gets dropped.

If I'm still getting it wrong, sorry.

 

While I do agree with @Thaina that this would be a very helpful and desired feature, the alternative until that is real which achieves the exact same result is what @spaceemotion suggested, which is to use git submodules where both read and write is needed and leave UPM only for external read-only resources.

I do that with different projects using the same package. Found a bug? Fix it, commit the submodule and then my team will receive the updated package once they pull the latest changes of the project. Later when I am gonna work on a different project using that same package I just pull the changes on the submodule and everything is fine.

 

My point is
- UPM will pull the package into Library/PackageCache
- - Which might cause some problem to edit it because it might got overridden by reimport
- AssetStore package will pull your package directly into asset folder
- - Which means it mess around with your project folder and repo

I think you get my point already so, for your question, I would be preferred that "Reimport All" will not drop the PackageCache folder but just pull all package from the git source into latest version instead. And if I have edit any file in any package it would just be normally merged or become a git conflict that I could also handle conflict normally

 

In manifest file json there is dependency asset required. How do I download dependency so that is placed in required folder inside Unity project?

 

I've created a package and linked it using Git. But when I update the repository the package in our projects don't update. Only when I remove the package and add it again (same git url) it is updated.

Do I do something wrong or is this not supported?

 

@henkjan That's right, it's not supported, actually by design it will not update repo of the package but always using the same version you are using last time so it consistent for every build. Imagine you are using git repo of other developer and they have made breaking change, your project can be broken without your intention if it always auto updated

And so you need to manually signal the new version of repo you want to update by yourself

 

Ok thanks for the reply! I'm glade it's not me than

About the updating, I would like it to work the same way it works for Unity's packages. Also there I can choose to update the package or not (so it's not auto updated) in the package manager. It would be nice if I got a indication that there was a new version and the decide do the update.

 

@henkjan Open up manifest.json and delete the thing you want to update from the "lock" section. Then it will update automatically (but only this once - you need to do this every time).

 

Loving this integration! Thank you so much.

Actually, this is already working just fine in 2019.3 with a query parameter, for example

Code (CSharp):

1. "com.cysharp.unitask": "https://github.com/Cysharp/UniTask.git?path=src/UniTask/Assets/Plugins/UniTask",

I'd like to raise again the request for a build-in update mechanism. Deleting the lock from the manifest file is pretty hands-on. If there was a protocol for the package manager to check for updates, like with native packages, that would be awesome. Otherwise I have a hard time communicating the update procedure to team members without coding background.

 

Wow. This is a game changer.

Previously you've had to choose between "Keep everything in one repo" (much easier for development but more work when you want to publish a package) or "Separate your packages from your project" (People can easily add your packages to their project but you've got an extra job of syncing the project and package when you make changes).

If this works as I hope it will then it makes the obvious and easy way also the right way to publish stuff.

 

@olejuer for updating, I recommend you look into GitHub packages instead (or hosting them on Verdaccio etc). Hosting on GitHub isn't that difficult and gives the advantage of updates working "as expected".

 

@fherbst am I missing something here? My packages are all hosted on GitHub, as are some third-party packages I use. The package manager UI does not check for updates, or at least does not make them available. According to Unity, the only way to upgrade is to delete the lock statement from the package manifest or updating the revision manually. Did this change? Is there some config that makes the update function available in the UPM UI?

@andybak well, this only applies if your package repo has the same privacy setting as your project repo. I would always opt for separate repos for published packages. This also keeps the git history readable and increases overall maintainability. However, "the extra job of syncing" will remain. That's exactly why I am asking for a streamlined process here.

 

@olejuer Try re-adding the GIT url of the package from the package manager. Last time I tried that seemed to update the package to the latest version.

Github has a NPM package repository that kinda works with Unity, this requires pushing the package to the NPM repository on Github. This is different than the git repository. See https://forum.unity.com/threads/using-github-packages-registry-with-unity-package-manager.861076/. I made some tools to help publishing (see my signature).

 

I think the person understand it but the point is, unity should also look at git repo and check that there was new update for us to see in the Package Manager UI. So we could update from the UI instead of manually remove and add like we have done so far

 

I think we're talking about different use cases. I'm thinking of the typical "Here's a thing I made and it comes with an example project".

People usually publish the whole Unity project to Github - which is great as you get projectversion.txt, settings, packages etc. and it becomes *much* more likely that the thing will work for someone else. (I've learned this through bitter experience)

But you also want a nice upm friendly url for people to easily add to existing projects.

I think the ideal solution here is to have the repo be a full working Unity scene and give people the git package url using the path trick.

 

@olejuer I'm actually running into having to upgrade git repos for some packages we use and created a tool for it

I added an upgrade packages functionality in halodi-unity-package-registry-manager. It'll allow you to upgrade every git package (as well as registry packages). Note this is very experimental, let me know how it works. Packages from a git repo are always "upgradable", the package manager will try to pull the latest (at least in my testing).

https://github.com/Halodi/halodi-unity-package-registry-manager

 

Is there a way to get more detailed information about why my package can't be imported? I just get an error saying that the JSON is invalid.

The package I'm trying to install is:

Code (CSharp):

1. "com.QuantumCalzone.UnityBookmarks": "https://github.com/QuantumCalzone/UnityBookmarks.git#upm"

 

Just throwing this out there, but if someone could do a quick list on how to properly set up a unity project as an installable package via git I think it would be so helpful to so many people.

I see a few examples (some listed in this thread) but reverse engineering them has failed me so far.

 

It's just JSON so any standard JSON validator should work. i.e. https://jsonlint.com/ or dozen others online.

My guess is a missing comma at the end of that line?

 

Hmm, I don't think so. Both the manifest.json in my import test project and the package.json in the project I'm trying to import validate.

 

Hmmmm. maybe the com.QuantumCalzone.UnityBookmarks part should be all lower-case? None of the examples I can see have mixed case.

 

OMG that was it! It's always something so simple! Thank you so much!!

 

Does anyone know if there was ever an answer to this somewhere? Looked through whole thread but couldn't see any answer on native support for downgrading/upgrading packages based on semver release tags in git paths, please let me know!

CC: @maximeb_unity @okcompute_unity

 

@firstuser have you tried the linked add-on? https://github.com/mob-sakai/UpmGitExtension
So far this is not natively supported in PackMan, but mob-sakai is super active, so if you run into issues with his extension (or parts missing for your workflow) I'm sure opening an issue there would help

 

Yep, thank you, explored it! It's great for what it does but in my case the setup cost and goals mean a big change would be painful down the road.

Mainly trying to figure out which way to go long term to estimate how involved things will be before committing, so really hoping to get an answer if any native support is coming (or at least on radar.)

 

Do you know if this is 2020 compatible? the upm git extension 'open window to install package' doesn't appear there.
Can I just add the corresponding git paths themselves? (i.e. add package git url and put there UIEffect one, ParticleForUGUI, etc)

EDIT: not true, on a fresh project it works perfectly fine. Something on my current full project is just blocking it, maybe scripts errors. Sorry for the inconveniences.

 

Curious why Unity doesn't just include GIT in the Unity editor install now? Why would you rely on such a variable system configuration for such an essential part of projects (packages)?

This can be a major pain point for collaborative projects, in would means you need to remember to tell people to install GIT who might join the project, even the artists. If you don't, the Editor can end up just not finishing doing anything, it gets stuck on "Waiting for Editor GUI to repaint" or for "CoreModule" to finish processing, instead of letting you know it can't finish because it can't get the dependency. And even if you remove the dependency from your manifest, it will still fail to open the project, until you also delete the existing CSPROJ file that existed for when the package was imported before.

 

I'd recommend to use scoped registries wherever possible instead of directly using git packages. E.g. check if it's available on OpenUPM, or if you have some server hosting capabilities host your own for internal packages (we're using Verdaccio). This avoids the need for direct git URLs and instead allows proper updating of packages in Package Manager (same as for Unity's).

 

we have all our internal studio packages directly in git with all security and benefits of packagemanager
it shows all versions and recomends updates

The only thing that differ is dependencies.
even without dependencies it is way more easy to manage than any npm

 

dont just close unity hub. you gotta force quit it from task manager. otherwise it lingers.

 

force quit all unity things from task manager and then open it up and try again.

 

It's been 2 and a half year since this post; and this feature isn't mentioned in the official roadmap; can we get an official update on this?