Setup & Onboarding

Setup & Onboarding checks everything the tools depend on and offers a one-click fix for what’s missing: install, enable, or configure. A status light and re-scan button sit in the header, beside readiness pills for Project, C++, and Lua, and a count of optionals met.

The Setup & Onboarding section: readiness pills, then Required and Common Optionals rows.
  • Required: a registered O3DE engine, an O3DE project, and O3DE Tools enabled for this project. The extension is opt-in per project. It asks once when you open an O3DE project, and a non-O3DE workspace stays fully dormant.
  • Common optionals: Windows long paths, FFmpeg, and LLM connections.
  • LLM connections are off by default and set per project. When on, a local MCP endpoint, bound to 127.0.0.1, lets an assistant such as Claude build, run, read structured build results, and read or change build configuration.

Choose C++ setup or Lua setup to see that track’s checks.

The C++ setup panel: C++ requirements and C++ optionals, each with a status dot.

C++ requirements

  • Source engine in workspace and Workspace settings run the guided workspace setup: one multi-root workspace holding your project, the engine source, and gems. It generates .vscode settings, a launch.json (Editor, GameLauncher, Attach, Class Creation Wizard), and O3DE code snippets. Re-run and Rewrite redo them.
  • The toolchain for your platform: Visual Studio 2022, Windows SDK, CMake, and Ninja on Windows. Clang or GCC, CMake, and Ninja on Linux.
  • The 3rd Party path and the C/C++ extension.

C++ optionals: Clang / LLVM, CMake Tools, clangd, and Python. An optional item that’s absent reads Not installed on a neutral dot, never a red fault.

The Lua setup panel listing four Lua requirements, all ready.

Lua requirements

  • Lua language server (sumneko.lua), which provides completion and hovers.
  • VS Code as Lua editor, so O3DE’s Open Lua Editor opens scripts here. Re-register repeats the one-time registration.
  • The RemoteTools gem, which the debugger connects through.
  • Lua API data, the dump of O3DE’s reflected scripting API that IntelliSense and the palette read.
The Version Control list: Git, Git LFS, Subversion, Plastic SCM, and Perforce, with installed versions.
Version Control detects Git, Git LFS, Subversion, Plastic SCM, and Perforce, and shows the installed version of each.