godot-cpp template

This repository serves as a quickstart template for GDExtension development with Godot 4.0+.

Contents

• An empty Godot project (demo/)
• godot-cpp as a submodule (godot-cpp/)
• GitHub Issues template (.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE.yml)
• GitHub CI/CD workflows to publish your library packages when creating a release (.github/workflows/builds.yml)
• preconfigured source files for C++ development of the GDExtension (src/)
• setup to automatically generate .xml files in a doc_classes/ directory to be parsed by Godot as GDExtension built-in documentation

Usage - Template

To use this template, log in to GitHub and click the green "Use this template" button at the top of the repository page. This will let you create a copy of this repository with a clean git history. Make sure you clone the correct branch as these are configured for development of their respective Godot development branches and differ from each other. Refer to the docs to see what changed between the versions.

For getting started after cloning your own copy to your local machine, you should:

• initialize the godot-cpp git submodule via git submodule update --init
• change the name of your library
  • change the name of the compiled library file inside the SConstruct file by modifying the libname string.
  • change the pathnames of the to be loaded library name inside the demo/bin/example.gdextension file. By replacing libgdexample to the name specified in your SConstruct file.
  • change the name of the demo/bin/example.gdextension file
• change the entry_symbol string inside your demo/bin/your-extension.gdextension file to be configured for your GDExtension name. This should be the same as the GDExtensionBool GDE_EXPORT external C function. As the name suggests, this sets the entry function for your GDExtension to be loaded by the Godot editors C API.
• register the classes you want Godot to interact with inside the register_types.cpp file in the initialization method (here initialize_gdextension_types) in the syntax GDREGISTER_CLASS(CLASS-NAME);.

Configuring an IDE

You can develop your own extension with any text editor and by invoking scons on the command line, but if you want to work with an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), you can use a compilation database file called compile_commands.json. Most IDEs should automatically identify this file, and self-configure appropriately. To generate the database file, you can run one of the following commands in the project root directory:

# Generate compile_commands.json while compiling
scons compiledb=yes

# Generate compile_commands.json without compiling
scons compiledb=yes compile_commands.json

Usage - Actions

This repository comes with a GitHub action that builds the GDExtension for cross-platform use. It triggers automatically for each pushed change. You can find and edit it in builds.yml. After a workflow run is complete, you can find the file godot-cpp-template.zip on the Actions tab on GitHub.