Publishing overview

Every target Luau Engine can build, what each one produces, and how to configure them.

One project, many destinations. Targets are declared in luauengine.toml and selected at build time; the place file itself never changes.

Targets#

Target	Output	Status
`roblox`	A published place or universe on roblox.com	Stable
`windows`	`.exe` + runtime, installer or portable `.zip`	Stable
`macos`	Universal `.app`, `.dmg`, notarisation-ready	Stable
`linux`	AppImage, `.tar.gz`, `.deb`, `.rpm`	Stable
`web`	WebAssembly + WebGPU bundle for static hosting	Beta
`server`	Headless authoritative build, Docker image optional	Beta
`android`	`.apk` and `.aab`, signed with your keystore	Experimental
`ios`	Xcode project for your own signing	Experimental

Declaring targets#

luauengine.toml

[project]
name = "My Game"
version = "1.4.0"
identifier = "com.example.mygame"

[targets]
default = "windows"
enabled = ["roblox", "windows", "macos", "linux", "web"]

[targets.roblox]
place-id = 1234567890
universe-id = 987654321

[targets.windows]
arch = ["x86_64", "aarch64"]
icon = "assets/branding/icon.ico"
installer = true

[targets.web]
base-url = "/play/"
compression = "brotli"

Building#

luauengine build                       # the default target
luauengine build --target macos        # a specific one
luauengine build --all                 # everything in `enabled`
luauengine build --target windows --release

Debug builds are the default: unstripped symbols, the debug port open, hot-reload enabled. --release strips symbols, enables full Luau optimisation and native codegen, and turns off the debug port.

Output goes to build/<target>/, overridable with --out.

What a build contains#

build/windows/
├── MyGame.exe          # launcher; sets up the runtime and loads the bundle
├── MyGame.lue          # compiled place, scripts and packed assets
├── runtime/            # engine shared libraries
├── CREDITS.txt         # attribution collected from asset licences
└── LICENSES/           # third-party licence texts

The .lue bundle holds the compiled DataModel, Luau bytecode and processed assets in one signed archive. It is content-addressed, so shipping a patch means shipping the chunks that changed.

The check step#

Every build runs a check first. Run it alone to see problems without waiting for a full compile:

luauengine check --target windows

It reports:

Luau type errors and lints
platform-service calls not behind an Engine.Capabilities guard
assets whose licence forbids redistribution on this target
rbxassetid:// references in a non-Roblox target
missing SDKs for the requested target

Wire it into CI and most cross-target breakage never reaches a build.

Versioning#

[project]
version = "1.4.0"
build-number = "auto"     # auto | fixed | git-describe

auto increments per build, git-describe uses git describe --tags --always. The value is available at runtime:

print(Engine.Version)       -- "1.4.0"
print(Engine.BuildNumber)   -- "1.4.0-42-g8c31a9f"

Signing#

[targets.windows.signing]
certificate = "env:WINDOWS_CERT_PATH"
password = "env:WINDOWS_CERT_PASSWORD"
timestamp-url = "http://timestamp.digicert.com"

[targets.macos.signing]
identity = "env:APPLE_DEVELOPER_ID"
notarize = true
apple-id = "env:APPLE_ID"
team-id = "env:APPLE_TEAM_ID"

env: values are read from the environment at build time, so secrets stay out of the repository.

Continuous integration#

luauengine ci build --all --release --out ./artifacts

ci runs non-interactively, emits machine-readable logs and exits non-zero on any check failure. A GitHub Actions workflow is in Contributing.