Command line tutorial (original) (raw)

Some developers like using the command line extensively. Godot is designed to be friendly to them, so here are the steps for working entirely from the command line. Given the engine relies on almost no external libraries, initialization times are pretty fast, making it suitable for this workflow.

Note

On Windows and Linux, you can run a Godot binary in a terminal by specifying its relative or absolute path.

On macOS, the process is different due to Godot being contained within an.app bundle (which is a folder, not a file). To run a Godot binary from a terminal on macOS, you have to cd to the folder where the Godot application bundle is located, then run Godot.app/Contents/MacOS/Godotfollowed by any command line arguments. If you've renamed the application bundle from Godot to another name, make sure to edit this command line accordingly.

Command line reference

Legend

• Available in editor builds, debug export templates and release export templates.
• Available in editor builds and debug export templates only.
• Only available in editor builds.

Note that unknown command line arguments have no effect whatsoever. The engine will not warn you when using a command line argument that doesn't exist with a given build type.

General options

Command	Description
-h, --help	Display the list of command line options.
--version	Display the version string.
-v, --verbose	Use verbose stdout mode.
-q, --quiet	Quiet mode, silences stdout messages. Errors are still displayed.

Run options

Command	Description
--, ++	Separator for user-provided arguments. Following arguments are not used by the engine, but can be read from OS.get_cmdline_user_args().
-e, --editor	Start the editor instead of running the scene.
-p, --project-manager	Start the Project Manager, even if a project is auto-detected.
--debug-server	Start the editor debug server (://<host/IP>[:], e.g. tcp://127.0.0.1:6007)
--quit	Quit after the first iteration.
--quit-after	Quit after the given number of iterations. Set to 0 to disable.
-l, --language	Use a specific locale. follows the format language_Script_COUNTRY_VARIANT where language is a 2 or 3-letter language code in lowercase and the rest is optional. See Locale codes for more details.
--path	Path to a project ( must contain a 'project.godot' file).
-u, --upwards	Scan folders upwards for 'project.godot' file.
--main-pack	Path to a pack (.pck) file to load.
--render-thread	Render thread mode ('unsafe', 'safe', 'separate'). See Thread Modelfor more details.
--remote-fs	Remote filesystem (<host/IP>[:] address).
--remote-fs-password	Password for remote filesystem.
--audio-driver	Audio driver. Use --help first to display the list of available drivers.
--display-driver	Display driver (and rendering driver). Use --help first to display the list of available drivers.
--rendering-method	Renderer name. Requires driver support.
--rendering-driver	Rendering driver (depends on display driver). Use --help first to display the list of available drivers.
--gpu-index <device_index>	Use a specific GPU (run with --verbose to get available device list).
--text-driver	Text driver (Fonts, BiDi, shaping).
--tablet-driver	Pen tablet input driver.
--headless	Enable headless mode (--display-driver headless --audio-driver Dummy). Useful for servers and with --script.
--write-movie	Run the engine in a way that a movie is written (usually with .avi or .png extension).--fixed-fps is forced when enabled, but can be used to change movie FPS.--disable-vsync can speed up movie writing but makes interaction more difficult.--quit-after can be used to specify the number of frames to write.

Display options

Command	Description
-f, --fullscreen	Request fullscreen mode.
-m, --maximized	Request a maximized window.
-w, --windowed	Request windowed mode.
-t, --always-on-top	Request an always-on-top window.
--resolution x	Request window resolution.
--position ,	Request window position.
--screen	Request window screen.
--single-window	Use a single window (no separate subwindows).
--xr-mode	Select XR mode ('default', 'off', 'on').

Debug options

Command	Description
-d, --debug	Debug (local stdout debugger).
-b, --breakpoints	Breakpoint list as source::line comma-separated pairs, no spaces (use %20 instead).
--profiling	Enable profiling in the script debugger.
--gpu-profile	Show a GPU profile of the tasks that took the most time during frame rendering.
--gpu-validation	Enable graphics API validation layers for debugging.
--gpu-abort	Abort on GPU errors (usually validation layer errors), may help see the problem if your system freezes.
--remote-debug	Remote debug (://<host/IP>[:], e.g. tcp://127.0.0.1:6007).
--single-threaded-scene	Scene tree runs in single-threaded mode. Sub-thread groups are disabled and run on the main thread.
--debug-collisions	Show collision shapes when running the scene.
--debug-paths	Show path lines when running the scene.
--debug-navigation	Show navigation polygons when running the scene.
--debug-avoidance	Show navigation avoidance debug visuals when running the scene.
--debug-stringnames	Print all StringName allocations to stdout when the engine quits.
--frame-delay	Simulate high CPU load (delay each frame by milliseconds).
--time-scale	Force time scale (higher values are faster, 1.0 is normal speed).
--disable-vsync	Forces disabling of vertical synchronization, even if enabled in the project settings. Does not override driver-level V-Sync enforcement.
--disable-render-loop	Disable render loop so rendering only occurs when called explicitly from script.
--disable-crash-handler	Disable crash handler when supported by the platform code.
--fixed-fps	Force a fixed number of frames per second. This setting disables real-time synchronization.
--delta-smoothing	Enable or disable frame delta smoothing ('enable', 'disable').
--print-fps	Print the frames per second to the stdout.

Standalone tools