The forge command line

forge and the hub share the same core — manifest, release discovery, engines, installs, receipts, project descriptors, settings — so anything you can do in one you can do in the other, and they see each other's results.

It is installed by AutomationForge-Setup.exe and added to PATH, or available on its own as forge-win-x64.zip.

Commands

forge engines                     # the Unreal installations on this machine
forge list [--engine 5.8]         # every set and plugin, with what is installed
forge install montageforge        # a set, or a plugin, dependencies first
forge install MotionForge --project C:\Games\MyGame
forge update                      # everything on a target, to its latest
forge uninstall MontageForge
forge enable MontageForge --project C:\Games\MyGame   # the .uproject edit
forge channel [stable|nightly]    # the channel both surfaces follow
forge claim <set|plugin>          # add free plugins to your account, without installing
forge login / logout / whoami     # one account for the site, the hub and the CLI

Exit codes

Worth wiring into a script rather than parsing output:

Code	Meaning
`0`	Done
`2`	What you asked for is not there — a mistyped `--project`, an engine that is not installed, an unknown plugin
`4`	Not signed in, or the account service could not answer
`5`	Something in the request is paid and not on the account. The rest was installed

That last one is the important distinction: exit 5 is a partial success. A set install that hits a paid member does the free ones and tells you which it skipped, rather than refusing the lot.

Engine installs need elevation

A target under Program Files makes the CLI relaunch itself elevated, once. You approve a single prompt rather than one per plugin.

Project installs need nothing — which is a good reason to prefer --project while you are still deciding what a project should use.

Signing in on a machine with no browser

forge login --no-browser

prints the link instead of opening one. Open it anywhere you are signed in, say yes, and the session lands on the machine that asked.

Useful over SSH or RDP, and the only sane route on a build machine. The session is still kept under DPAPI for the Windows user that ran the command — it is not transferable by copying the file.

What it does not do

The CLI is an installer and an account client. It does not generate content, does not open projects, and does not drive the editor.

Running a pipeline unattended is the editor's job — see pipelines. Nothing in the pipeline executor needs the editor UI, so a commandlet of your own can advance a run. We do not ship one yet.

Release notes

forge ships from the automation-forge repository rather than as a plugin, so it has no entry in the release manifest and no changelog page here. Its notes are on its GitHub releases, and it shares a core with the hub, whose changelog usually explains what changed underneath both.