Getting Started

This guide walks you from a clean machine to a full build-and-deploy pipeline.

Prerequisites

  • .NET 10.0 SDK — required to install and run the global tool.
  • A Godot project using the Mono/.NET flavor of Godot (MG-CLI installs the mono engine builds and runs dotnet build as part of exporting).
  • git on your PATH — used by the commit and discord-hook commands.
  • Platform tools as needed: nothing extra to pre-install for Steam or itch.io — MG-CLI can install SteamCMD and Butler for you.

Installation

Install from NuGet as a global tool:

dotnet tool install --global mg-cli

Update later with:

dotnet tool update --global mg-cli

Verify it is on your PATH:

mg-cli

Running mg-cli with no arguments prints the ASCII-art banner. Add --help to any command or command group to see its usage, e.g. mg-cli godot --help or mg-cli godot build --help.

Your first build

The example below assumes your Godot project lives at ./game and you want to build the export preset named Windows.

1. Install the Godot engine and export templates

mg-cli godot install 4.4.1

This downloads the Mono engine build and the matching export templates from the official Godot GitHub releases and installs them to the standard per-user location for your OS.

cd game
mg-cli godot version --bump

This updates config/version in project.godot to a fresh YYYY.MM.BUILD value. See Versioning for the details of the scheme.

3. Build an export preset

mg-cli godot build -p ./game -v 4.4.1 -r Windows

Before exporting, godot build runs a dotnet build to catch C# compile errors early, and imports the project if the .godot folder is missing. Build logs are written to builds/Logs/<preset>.log.

To choose presets interactively instead of naming one:

mg-cli godot build -p ./game -v 4.4.1 -i

Deploying

Once you have a build, deploy it to any of the supported targets.

Steam

# One-time: install SteamCMD
mg-cli steam setup

# Deploy using a VDF build script
mg-cli steam deploy -p ./game --vdf ./steam/app_build.vdf -u <user> -pw <password>

The current version is written into the VDF's Desc field automatically.

itch.io

# One-time: install Butler (you'll be prompted to log in)
mg-cli itchio setup

# Push a build
mg-cli itchio deploy ./game/builds/Windows my-studio/my-game:windows -p ./game

DigitalOcean (self-hosted server builds)

mg-cli digitalocean 203.0.113.10 ./deploy/master_server.service ./builds/master_server -n ./deploy/master_server.conf

Tag the release and announce it

# Stage all, commit with the version, tag v<version>, push to origin/main
mg-cli commit ./game

# Post a Discord embed with a changelog generated from git tags
mg-cli discord-hook -p ./game -h <webhook-url> -s <steam-url> -l <logo-url>

A complete pipeline

Chained together (in a shell, or as CI steps), a full pipeline reads naturally:

mg-cli godot install 4.4.1 \
  && mg-cli godot version --bump \
  && mg-cli godot build -p ./game -v 4.4.1 -r Windows \
  && mg-cli steam deploy -p ./game --vdf ./steam/app_build.vdf -u "$STEAM_USER" -pw "$STEAM_PASS" \
  && mg-cli commit ./game \
  && mg-cli discord-hook -p ./game -h "$DISCORD_HOOK" -s "$STEAM_URL" -l "$LOGO_URL"

Because each command returns a non-zero exit code on failure, the && chain stops at the first problem — you will never deploy a build that failed to export.

Next: see the Command Reference for every flag, or the Architecture to understand how the pieces are wired together.

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