Getting started¶

Skywalker is a C++20 game engine with a native macOS editor, built so that AI agents can see a scene, act on it precisely, test what they built and work alongside you through the same interface the editor uses. This section takes you from a fresh checkout to a playable game and an agent that can build with you.

Tidebreak Isle at golden hour — Tidebreak Isle, one of the sample projects, rendered by the engine from its own sequence camera.

The path¶

Step	You will	Time
Install and build	Build the engine, the CLI, the player and the editor from source; run the tests	10–20 min
Your first project	Understand the project folder, open an example, render it from the command line	5 min
Editor tour	Learn the editor's panels, viewport controls, play mode and the agent dock	10 min
Your first game in 15 minutes	Build Coin Run: a character, coins, a score and a camera, then test and package it	15 min
Connect an AI agent	Wire Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI or Cursor to the engine with one command	5 min

Three ways to work¶

Everything in Skywalker is a tool: a named operation with a JSON schema, an LLM-oriented description and a handler. There are three ways to call the same tools, and they never differ in power.

EditorCommand lineAI agents

The SwiftUI editor on macOS: outliner, viewport, details panel, asset browser, studio and the in-editor agent crew. Every button you press calls a tool, so every edit is undoable and attributed.

open build/release/bin/Skywalker.app --args --project "$PWD/examples/hello_sky"

The skywalker binary is the headless engine: it renders, simulates, compiles Wander, runs any tool and packages games, with a CPU renderer fallback for machines without a GPU.

skywalker render examples/hello_sky/scenes/main.sky.json -o shot.png --annotate
skywalker call scene_overview '{}' --project examples/hello_sky --scene scenes/main.sky.json

Any MCP client (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or your own) drives the engine through skywalker mcp. Attached to a running editor, you watch the agent's edits appear live and can undo them.

skywalker setup claude

For agents

An agent that joins a project starts the same way every time: learn the conventions, look at what exists, then act and verify.

engine_info {}
scene_overview {}
viewport_capture {"annotate": true}

Requirements at a glance¶


Platform	macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon (Metal). The engine core is portable C++20 and builds headless elsewhere with a CPU renderer.
Toolchain	Xcode 16 or later (Swift 6), CMake 3.29 or later, Ninja
Disk	About 2 GB for a release build with its fetched dependencies
Optional	Blender 3.2+ for the DCC bridge; an API key for the in-editor crew or the headless studio runner

Ready? Install and build.