Builds & downloads

A build takes your project from GitHub, builds it for each platform you chose, and publishes the result to your store. This page explains what you'll see — it's the same for every engine.

Starting a build

Open your project in the console and click Build. EngineForge queues the build and opens its live view. You don't need to keep the page open — you'll get an email when it finishes.

The steps

A build runs through these steps in order, and you can watch each one's log live:

1. Validate — checks your accounts are connected and the build is configured correctly (for example, that your itch.io game page exists). Catching a problem here means it fails in seconds instead of after a long build.
2. Fetch sources — clones your GitHub repository.
3. Build — builds your project for each platform you selected.
4. Publish — uploads each platform's build to your store (itch.io or Steam).
5. Cleanup — clears the temporary workspace.

If a step fails, the build stops there and the error is shown on that step.

Downloading your build

Every successful build keeps a downloadable zip per platform. On the build's page in the console, each one has a Download button. (Downloads use short-lived secure links, so use the button rather than bookmarking a URL.)

These are the same files that were published to your store, so you can grab a build to test locally even if you don't publish it.

Build emails

When a build finishes you get an email:

• Succeeded — with a link straight to the build in the console.
• Failed — naming the step that failed and the reason, so you know what to fix.

Cancelled builds don't send an email.

Build minutes

You're billed for the time spent building — the build step itself — not for queueing, cloning, or publishing. A build that's rejected early (for example, an unsupported engine version) uses essentially zero build minutes, because it stops before the build step runs. See Supported engines for what's accepted.