Publishing to Roblox

The Roblox target publishes exactly as Roblox Studio does — the same place, the same universe, the same result. Nothing about your game changes because it was authored in Luau Engine.

Authenticate#

luauengine auth roblox

This opens a browser, completes the OAuth flow and stores the token in your OS keychain (Credential Manager, Keychain, or Secret Service). Tokens are never written to the project.

For CI, use an API key from the Creator Dashboard instead:

export ROBLOX_API_KEY="…"
luauengine publish --roblox --place-id 1234567890

The key needs Place management: write for the universe you publish to.

Configure#

[targets.roblox]
place-id = 1234567890
universe-id = 987654321
publish-mode = "published"      # published | saved

saved uploads a new version without making it live, which is what you want for a staging branch.

Publish#

luauengine publish --roblox
luauengine publish --roblox --place-id 1234567890
luauengine publish --roblox --mode saved
luauengine publish --roblox --message "v1.4.0 — new boss arena"

From the editor: set the target to roblox and use Publish, or Ctrl+Alt+P.

Multiple places in one universe#

Games with several places declare them all and publish selectively:

[targets.roblox]
universe-id = 987654321

[[targets.roblox.places]]
name = "Lobby"
place-id = 1234567890
file = "places/lobby.rbxlx"

[[targets.roblox.places]]
name = "Arena"
place-id = 1234567891
file = "places/arena.rbxlx"

luauengine publish --roblox --place Arena
luauengine publish --roblox --all-places

Uploading assets#

Assets referenced as asset:// are uploaded on first publish and their IDs cached in assets/.lock:

{
  "models/crate.glb": { "id": "rbxassetid://18273645", "hash": "sha256:9f2c…" },
  "audio/theme.ogg":  { "id": "rbxassetid://18273646", "hash": "sha256:1ab7…" }
}

Commit that file. Without it every publish from a fresh checkout re-uploads everything and produces duplicate assets in your inventory.

luauengine assets upload --roblox          # upload without publishing
luauengine assets upload --roblox --force  # re-upload regardless of hash

Uploads are subject to Roblox moderation. luauengine assets status --roblox shows anything still pending review.

Automating from GitHub Actions#

name: Publish to Roblox
on:
  push:
    tags: ['v*']

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: Luau-Engine/setup-luauengine@v1
        with:
          version: '0.9.4'
      - run: luauengine check --target roblox
      - run: luauengine publish --roblox --message "${{ github.ref_name }}"
        env:
          ROBLOX_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ROBLOX_API_KEY }}

Things to know#

• Rate limits. Roblox limits publishes per place per minute. The CLI backs off and retries; --no-retry fails fast instead.
• Place size. The same limits Studio enforces apply. luauengine build --target roblox --report-size prints the breakdown before you hit one.
• Engine-only instances. EngineConfiguration, AssetManifest and PlatformBinding are stripped from the Roblox upload — they mean nothing there.
• Team Create. Not supported. If your team uses Team Create, publishing from Luau Engine will overwrite the live place with your local copy; coordinate through version control instead.