sow-tools/README.md

sow-tools

Shared NWN build tooling for Shadows Over Westgate.

This repository owns the Go-based sow-toolkit binary used by the separate module and assets repositories.

Build

Build the development binary into tools/sow-toolkit:

./build-tool.sh

Or run directly with Go:

GOCACHE="$PWD/.cache/go-build" go run ./cmd/nwn-tool --help

Repository Layout

cmd/nwn-tool/      CLI entrypoint
internal/app/      command wiring and console UX
internal/erf/      ERF/MOD/HAK reading and writing
internal/gff/      canonical GFF JSON and binary conversion
internal/pipeline/ build, extract, compare, and manifest workflows
internal/project/  config loading and repo scanning
internal/validator/validation and diagnostics
tools/             built development binary output

Intended Consumers

• sow-module uses sow-toolkit for build-module, extract, validate, compare, and apply-hak-manifest
• sow-assets uses sow-toolkit for build-haks and validation
  • validation now fails early if duplicate asset resources would collide inside the same generated HAK
  • duplicate resources split across different HAK groups remain warnings because later HAK order can still override earlier content at runtime
• sow-module now also uses sow-toolkit for topdata:
  • validate-topdata
  • build-topdata
  • compare-topdata
  • convert-topdata

During development, sibling repositories can point at ../sow-tools/tools/sow-toolkit or ../sow-tools/tools/sow-toolkit.exe. For pinned releases, each consumer repo can instead carry its own copy in its local tools/ directory.

Cross-Repository Behavior

The current ownership split is:

• sow-tools
  • owns the shared CLI and build logic
  • owns module build, extract, compare, and HAK manifest application logic
  • owns topdata validation, build, compare, conversion, and packaging logic
• sow-module
  • owns canonical module source under src/
  • owns canonical topdata authored data under topdata/
  • owns the user-facing module and topdata wrapper commands
• sow-assets
  • owns canonical binary asset source under assets/
  • owns generated HAK manifests and parts manifests under staging/
  • owns the user-facing asset wrapper commands

Consumer wrapper resolution is intentionally aligned:

1. Prefer a pinned local binary in tools/
2. Else prefer a sibling ../sow-tools checkout for local source development
3. Else install the latest published sow-tools release artifact

NWScript compilation behavior is also aligned:

1. Prefer SOW_NWN_SCRIPT_COMPILER when explicitly set
2. Else prefer a local compiler in tools/script-compiler/ or tools/
3. Else use a system-installed nwn_script_comp from PATH

When the compiler runs, the toolkit prepares NWN_HOME / NWN_USER_DIRECTORY automatically and tries to detect NWN_ROOT from common Steam locations, including custom Steam library folders, before an explicit override is required.

Release Automation

This repo publishes:

• sow-toolkit-linux-amd64.tar.gz
• sow-toolkit-windows-amd64.exe

Consumer repos can fetch those binaries into their local tools/ directory with:

• install-tool.sh on Linux/macOS
• install-tool.ps1 on Windows

TopData

The native topdata system is implemented in this repo and authored in sow-module.

High-level ownership split:

• sow-tools
  • owns the sow-toolkit implementation
  • owns topdata validation, build, compare, conversion, and dataset-resolution logic
• sow-module
  • owns canonical topdata authored data under topdata/data/
  • owns the user-facing topdata workflow scripts

For a human-readable front-to-back explanation of how the native topdata builder works and how to use it, see:

• sow-module/topdata/README.md

Important topdata contracts still live here under internal/topdata/ because they are code-adjacent implementation contracts, not user workflow docs.