NowUI targets Unity 6000.4 or newer. The package is developed under Assets/NowUI as com.blenminer.nowui; Asset Store UPM product setup is handled in the publisher portal.

Close any open Unity editor for this project before running batchmode tests. Unity refuses to open the same project twice.

pwsh -File Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode EditMode
pwsh -File Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode PlayMode

The harness requires PowerShell 7, resolves the project relative to its own location, and finds the Unity Hub editor version recorded in ProjectSettings/ProjectVersion.txt. Set UNITY_EDITOR or pass -UnityEditor for a nonstandard install; an invalid override fails instead of silently selecting another editor. Test runs fail on invalid XML, failed tests, or zero discovered tests, and write logs/results under artifacts/local.

Unity editor validation is a local release gate. The repository does not queue Unity jobs in GitHub Actions because standard GitHub-hosted runners do not provide the licensed editor and platform modules required by these tests. The .github/scripts/Run-UnityTests.ps1 helper remains available for local or externally provisioned automation. Do not pass -quit to Unity test runs; the Unity Test Framework exits batchmode after writing results.

Agents use the native C# host for mockups and animation apps. The maintained workflow is in Native CLI; the package ships its launcher and tool payload under Assets/NowUI/Native~.

After changing native code, shared runtime code, shaders or bundled resources, run Tools/Build-NowUINativeBundle.ps1 and include its updated package and bundle.json together. Verify the packaged launcher can init and render from outside the source checkout's working directory. No global tool install or Unity asset export is required. The bundle hash selects a fresh local tool cache while existing preview projects follow the new assembly paths.

The standalone.yml workflow builds the shared source, runs the engine and native suites (GPU tests under software OpenGL), packs the CLI, and checks an installed tool's generated project. Local Windows graphics and Unity checks remain necessary for changes to rendering or native input. See the native guide for commands and explicit platform limits.

The optional browser.yml workflow runs only when manually dispatched. It adds the .NET 9 wasm-tools workload, prepares the browser kit, tests C# input and DOM transport, and publishes a fresh installed CLI scaffold outside the checkout. Chromium then checks rendering, persistent button state and resize behavior. See Browser smoke for local commands and the saved diagnostics. Native CI and ordinary native builds do not require the browser workload or Playwright. This smoke does not replace physical IME, mobile keyboard, gamepad or cross-browser validation.

Run pwsh -File Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode Benchmark -BenchmarkRuns 3 to measure all performance-category EditMode and PlayMode cases and generate overview.md, overview.json, and environment.json under the artifacts path. Use -Category NowUI.Overview for the expanded feature matrix alone. This requires Python 3 (standard library only) and a graphics device. The benchmark guide covers workload units, CPU/GPU boundaries, cache pressure, physical project paths, and interpretation. The older -Mode Perf smoke timer includes capture/PNG/disk costs and is not an isolated render benchmark.

Run the editor visual harness locally as a separate rendering gate:

• Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode Visual produces PNG captures and a manifest.json under artifacts/local/visual.
• Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode Animation advances an explicit deterministic frame clock, writes numbered PNG sequences, and encodes looping animated WebP files under artifacts/local/animation. WebP is what the README embeds: full-colour, about a sixth of the size of the equivalent GIFs, and it still autoplays in a plain <img>. -WebpQuality (default 60, the lowest setting with no visible loss on the README loops) and -WebpMethod (libwebp effort, default 6) trade size against fidelity and encode time. Add -Gif or -Mp4 to also emit those containers. Animation capture is intentionally separate from All and golden comparison.
• WebP encoding runs through Tools/NowUI-EncodeWebp.py, which needs Python 3 with Pillow (python -m pip install pillow); pass -Python, or set PYTHON/PYTHON_PATH, for a nonstandard install. The script's docstring records why Pillow beats ffmpeg's WebP encoder here and why the captures' partial alpha is flattened. -Gif and -Mp4 still need ffmpeg on PATH; pass -Ffmpeg, or set FFMPEG/FFMPEG_PATH, for a nonstandard install.
• Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode Encode re-encodes the most recent animation capture from its PNG frames without launching Unity, so encoder settings can be iterated in seconds.
• -ScenarioFilter applies to both Visual and Animation modes, so a single README scene can be iterated without recapturing the full catalogue.
• Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode Visual -ScenarioFilter theme-review- auto-discovers every NowThemeAsset under Assets/NowUI/Assets/Themes and renders the same palette, preset, control, and popup review sheet for each. Theme review sheets are intentionally excluded from golden comparison and performance smoke runs until their current appearance has been reviewed.
• Tools/Assert-NowUIVisualArtifacts.ps1 validates the manifest, unique capture names, required scenario names, PNG headers, dimensions, file sizes, and nonzero batch/vertex counts.
• Tools/NowUI-Harness.ps1 -Mode Golden compares canonical captures against Assets/NowUITests/Baselines/Visual. Landing-page scenarios use a stricter per-scenario mismatch ceiling than the general harness to catch a missing small control.

Cross-OS visual validation requires Unity 6000.4.0f1 and a graphics-capable session or virtual display. Do not run the visual harness with -nographics.

The repository remains a Built-in Render Pipeline project so optional SRP dependencies do not become mandatory for package users. For local release validation, use disposable URP and HDRP workspaces:

• .github/scripts/Set-RenderPipelineValidation.ps1 installs the matching 17.4.x package for Unity 6000.4 and removes the other SRP package.
• Each job requires NowUI.URP or NowUI.HDRP to compile and load. The NOWUI_EXPECT_RENDER_PIPELINE assertion fails if an optional assembly is absent, so package resolution cannot turn into an ignored success.
• The URP job also renders model previews and a renderer-feature frame and checks the resulting pixels. The HDRP job currently provides compile/load compatibility coverage for its thin custom-pass wrapper; a deterministic HDRP frame fixture remains future work.

Player builds are a local release gate and require the matching Unity editor platform modules:

Use NowUI.EditorCI.NowBuildVerification.Build in batch mode for each target. Provision all listed Unity 6000.4.0f1 modules before relying on the result.

Normal frame paths must allocate no managed memory after explicit warmup.

Allocation gates must first verify their counter against a deliberately retained allocation. Some Unity Mono builds return zero from the byte API even when code allocates. Repository tests use NowBenchmarkAllocations: zero-allocation gates can fall back to verified current-thread profiler allocation calls; byte budgets require verified bytes and are explicitly skipped when unavailable. Unsupported instrumentation must never turn into a passing zero. Performance output labels fallback events GC.Alloc.Calls, separate from GC.Alloc bytes.

The capture-based performance smoke runner independently probes its byte counter without a test-assembly dependency. Its JSON includes allocationBytesAvailable and writes allocatedBytes: null when the counter is unavailable. Its timings still include capture, encoding, and temporary-file work; they are not isolated frame-render timings.

Prepare representative state before sampling:

• Use NowDrawList.Warmup(...) or NowRenderer.Warmup(...) with a representative frame before measuring steady state.
• Use the input-aware warmup overloads when the representative frame includes controls that depend on NowInput; they install the same provider/surface shape the measured frame will use.
• For data-backed controls with known stable ids, call NowControlState.Warmup<T>(id) during initialization to create the slot outside the first interactive frame.
• Warm dynamic font glyphs, Lottie geometry, effect render textures, material batches, world-space material instances, and any user-owned buffers.
• When glass diagnostics are enabled, call NowGlassSettings.ReserveDiagnostics(maxPanesPerFrame) during initialization and read entries with TryGetLastFrameDiagnostic or CopyLastFrameDiagnosticsTo into caller-owned storage.

• Run pwsh -File Tools/Assert-NowUIPackageBoundary.ps1 to verify repository tests and harness code remain outside Assets/NowUI, the npm manifest, and the configured .unitypackage root. GitHub runs this on pull requests and again before semantic-release creates a release.
• Keep customer examples under Samples~; avoid shipping internal tests as imported sample content.
• Validate with Unity's Asset Store Publishing Tools before upload.
• Keep third-party notices current for bundled fonts, emoji/Lottie assets, and native plugin dependencies.
• The current repo intentionally does not rename Assets/NowUI to the package technical name during this pass; account for that in publisher-portal upload or a separate export step.