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 the early topdata bridge:
  • validate-topdata
  • build-topdata
  • compare-topdata

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

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 Migration

The topdata rebuild is now staged in this repo.

Current state:

• the new command surface exists in sow-toolkit
• sow-module/topdata/ is the new long-term source home
• build-topdata currently bridges through the Python builder in sow-dev for authoritative output generation
• native Go merge/build parity is still a follow-up milestone

See TOPDATA_HANDOFF_2026-04-02.md for the current handoff and migration notes.