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Configuration

Configuration is split across three places: the workspace Cargo.toml (feature flags), the user config directory (global preferences and dylib install dirs), and project.jsn (per-project settings).

Cargo features

The top-level jackdaw crate exposes:

  • default = []. The base editor.
  • dylib. Experimental dynamic-linking flow for hot-loadable extensions. Pulls in jackdaw_sdk plus Bevy’s dynamic_linking. Off by default; see Extending the Editor for what it gates.
  • hot-reload. Adds bevy_simple_subsecond_system for iterating on the editor itself. Editor-developer convenience, not for shipping games.

Templates ship with their own feature set. The game-static template’s Cargo.toml declares an editor feature that guards the editor binary, so a release build can drop it out:

[features]
default = []
editor = ["dep:jackdaw"]

cargo run builds the standalone game; cargo editor (or cargo run --bin editor --features editor) builds the editor host.

User config directory

Resolved via dirs::config_dir() joined with jackdaw. On Linux that lands at ~/.config/jackdaw/. The directory holds:

  • recent.json: launcher’s recent-projects list. Filtered to existing folders at startup.
  • keybinds.json: user-overridden keybinds. Defaults live in code; the file only contains overrides.
  • extensions.json: catalog of installed extensions (enabled/disabled, install state).
  • extensions/: drop a built .so / .dylib / .dll here to load it on the next editor start (only when the launcher binary is running with DylibLoaderPlugin).
  • games/: same idea, for game extensions.

You can edit any of these by hand; the editor watches the directory and reloads when files change.

Project file

project.jsn (see JSN Format) holds project-scoped settings:

  • default_scene: scene to open on project load.
  • layout: persisted dock layout, parsed as jackdaw_panels::LayoutState. Editing this by hand is not recommended; let the editor write it.
  • name, description: free-form metadata, shown in the launcher.

EditorPlugins builder

Programmatic config goes through the EditorPlugins plugin group. The default form is enough for most embedders:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
App::new()
    .add_plugins(EnhancedInputPlugin)
    .add_plugins(jackdaw::EditorPlugins::default())
    .run();
}

Notes:

  • EnhancedInputPlugin must be added before EditorPlugins. We do this rather than adding it ourselves so user game plugins can also add it without a duplicate-plugin panic.
  • DylibLoaderPlugin is intentionally not in the group. The launcher binary opts in by adding it directly. Per-project static editor binaries should not add it; the dylibs in ~/.config/jackdaw/ were built against a different bevy compilation and panic at the FFI boundary if loaded into a static editor.

The builder API for swapping out built-in extensions or adding statically linked ones is documented in Extending the Editor.

Toolchain

The repo CI pins to a specific nightly in .github/workflows/ci.yaml (currently nightly-2026-03-05, matched against bevy_cli’s rust-toolchain.toml). We don’t ship a rust-toolchain.toml yet, so your local toolchain is whatever rustup has selected. If you see compiler errors that match no obvious code change, check the CI pin first.