The ushell feature is a command line interface for working with Unreal Engine projects.
It features commands for many foundational UE operations, including:
- Building code
- Cooking and staging data
- Running titles
- Executing commands
- Running trace sessions for Unreal Insights
- And more
Ushell supports rich tab completion, includes detailed inline documentation, and has a persistent searchable command history. This page provides information on how to quickly get started using ushell.
How to Run ushell
To start ushell, open your engine's install directory (for example, C:/EpicGames/UE_5.4) and run the following batch file:
Relative path in engine install directory
Engine/Extras/ushell/ushell.bat
Launcher builds of UE 5.4 do not include ushell, but source code builds do. This issue is corrected in UE 5.5.
Every command starts with a dot/period character. For example, the .build command will build projects in various configurations. You can use tab completion to aid in discovery of commands and arguments.
Help and Documentation
View a list of all available commands by typing the .help command, and access each command's usage guide by specifying the --help argument:
ushell commands
.help
.build editor --help
More detailed documentation can be found in ushell's readme file, covering topics such as extending ushell with custom commands, scripting with ushell, running on POSIX-based platforms, and integrating with other shells. For convenience, this can be accessed using .help readme.
Example Commands
To help understand the use cases for ushell, the following is a non-exhaustive list of command examples you might use:
| Example Command | Description |
|---|---|
.build editor |
Build the editor for the active project. |
.build game win64 |
Build the game runtime for the active project for the Win64 platform. |
.build program UnreralInsights shipping |
Build Unreal Insights in shipping configuration. |
.cook game win64 |
Cook data for the game runtime for the Win64 platform. |
.stage game mac |
Stage locally built game/client executables and previously cooked data for mac. |
.run editor |
Run the editor for the active project. |
.run game Win64 --trace -- -ExecCmds="TrySurfing" |
Launch the locally built binaries for your active project for the Win64 platform. Send an Unreal Insights trace session to the development host, and execute the "TrySurfing" command. |
.run program UnrealInsights shipping |
Run Unreal Insights in a shipping configuration. |
.sln generate |
Generate a Visual Studio solution for the active project. |
.info |
Display info about the current session. |
More detailed information is available for each of the above commands with the .help command or by using the --help argument.
Each of the ushell commands accepts a --help argument that will show documentation for the command, details on how it is invoked, and descriptions for the available options.
Tab Completion and Command History
Anyone familiar with editing commands and recalling previous commands in Bash (such as Readline) will feel at home in a ushell prompt.
Extensive context-sensitive tab completion is available for commands and their arguments. Pressing the Tab key helps to discover both commands and their arguments, and aids in quick and convenient command entry. For example:
| Example Input | Description |
|---|---|
.<tab><tab> |
Displays available commands. |
.b<tab> |
Completes .build. |
.run <tab><tab> |
Shows options for the .run first argument. |
.build editor --p<tab> |
Adds --platform=. Further tabs complete platforms. |
Ushell maintains a history of previously run commands that persists from one session to the next. Previous commands can be conveniently recalled in a few ways.
To step backward through prior commands by prefix, use PgUp:
| Example Input | Description |
|---|---|
.bu<pgup> |
Cycle back through commands that started with ".bu" |
| ` .run game xb |
Iterate through previous runs on Xbox. |
You can perform a more thorough search through your incremental history by pressing Ctrl-R. This displays a prompt to enter a search string, and will display the latest command with a match. Pressing Ctrl-R again will step backward through commands that match the search string. If you press Ctrl-S, it will step forward instead.