Kovati Docs

Getting started

From nothing installed to a Forge set running in your project.

Documented in depth

Requirements: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, and Unreal Engine 5.8.

Prefer to watch first? The same five steps, done once end to end:

The hub installed and signed in, sets installed and updated, and the plugins turned on in a project.

Get the hub

Download from kovati.dev/download, or take the assets directly from the latest release.

  • AutomationForge-Setup.exe — the installer. Per-user, no administrator prompt. Installs the hub and the forge command line, adds forge to PATH, and can start the hub with Windows.
  • Portable, if you would rather not install anything: AutomationForge-Hub-win-x64.zip and forge-win-x64.zip separately, plus SHA256SUMS.txt to check them.

Asset names never carry a version, so those links always point at the newest release.

The installer is unsigned until the code-signing certificate arrives. Windows will ask you to confirm the first run.

Create an account and sign in

Nothing installs without one. In the hub, top right: Sign in. It opens app.kovati.dev in your browser — create an account there with Google, GitHub, or email and password — and say Yes, connect it when asked.

No password ever passes through the desktop. Accounts explains exactly how that works and what the hub and CLI show once you are in.

From the command line instead:

forge login

Add a Forge set

In the hub's Plugins tab, pick a set — say, MotionForge — and press Add & install. Free plugins are added to your account and installed in the same click; a paid member of a set is named and left out until you buy it.

forge install motionforge

forge list shows every set, what is on your account, and what is installed. forge engines shows which Unreal installations the hub found.

Open Unreal

Open your project, or a fresh 5.8 one. Automation Forge is in the toolbar, after Play — that menu comes with every engine install and is on in every project.

Under Installed, tick the plugins this project should use. The editor applies them when it restarts.

forge enable MotionForge --project C:\Games\MyGame

Each set's panels are then in the Tools menu, grouped under an Automation Forge heading:

The Unreal editor with the Tools menu open and scrolled to its Automation Forge section. Beneath that heading are MotionForge, Keys, an Automation Forge submenu, Kimodo Runner, Face Bank, Audio2Face Runner, Performance Capture, Speech Library and SurfaceForge; engine sections such as Revision Control, Data Validation and Python sit above it. The Content Browser below shows the project's _Generated tree with Face, Mesh, Motion, Performance, Pipelines, Speech and SurfaceForge folders, with Mesh open on Definitions, Images, Imported, Meshes, References and Tests.
One entry per installed set, plus the shared Keys page. The list grows and shrinks with what is installed — a set you have not bought is simply not in the menu. Note the Automation Forge button in the toolbar above too: that one is the hub.

The Content Browser in that shot shows the other half of the convention: generated work lands under _Generated, one folder per set, and each set subdivides by kind. See generated content is organised.

Know what you are running

The hub checks for updates every four hours and shows a Windows notification when one is ready; forge update does the same from the command line.

What's new, beside a plugin's Update button, lists every release since the version you have — skipped ones included — before you take it.

If a set needs a key or a local runner

Some sets need an API key (a hosted voice or motion provider) or a local model runner (a Docker container, or a GPU rented by the hour).

The hub's Keys and Runners drawers cover both. Keys go straight into the Windows Credential Manager; a runner can be started or stopped there before you open the editor — which is usually what you want, since an editor that opens against a stopped runner just reports a dead route.

There is no "hub copy" and "editor copy" of a key. The two surfaces read and write the same vault entries, and each says so:

The hub's Keys drawer, open over the Runners tab. It reads '2 of 4 set, 1 still needed. One vault, shared with the editor. A key set here is set for every project on this machine.' A General section lists Hugging Face, used by MotionForge Kimodo, explaining it downloads the gated text encoder the runner needs and that without one the container builds, starts, reports a device mode and then fails every generation. In amber: 'A token is not access. You must also be granted: meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3-8B-Instruct', with a Request access link and a note that Meta review these by hand, so start it early. The key is Not set, with a paste field and Save. Runpod follows.
In the hub, before the editor is open: 'One vault, shared with the editor. A key set here is set for every project on this machine.'
The Automation Forge Keys window inside the Unreal editor. Its header reads: kept in this computer's credential vault, never in the project, so a key does not travel with a copied folder or a commit; each plugin can also set its own key in Editor Preferences, and this is the same store gathered in one place. Hugging Face is marked Configured (OS credential vault), used by MotionForge Kimodo and FaceForge ACE, with the same amber note that a token is not access and the grants it needs listed beneath. Runpod follows, noting it needs write access.
The same entries inside the editor — 'this is the same store, gathered in one place' — now reading Configured, because the key was set in the hub. Note it is also used by FaceForge ACE here: one account, every plugin that needs it.

Both panels carry the same warning, because it is the mistake that costs most: a token is not access. Meta review the Llama 3 grant by hand, so request it on the day you install, not on the day you first generate.

See keys and runners.

Where to go next

Concepts

Definitions, providers, the ledger and graduation — the ideas every set shares.

The sets

What each one is for, and how far it has actually been taken.

Troubleshooting

The failures that come up most, and what they actually mean.

Edit on GitHub

Automation Forge

A family of Unreal Engine plugins that turn generated content into content the game can use.

Accounts

One account, three surfaces — the site, the hub, and the command line.

On this page

Get the hubCreate an account and sign inAdd a Forge setOpen UnrealKnow what you are runningIf a set needs a key or a local runnerWhere to go next