Scoped package registries

A scoped registry allows you to use a registry in addition to the Unity default registry where you can host your own packages. Using scoped registries ensures that the Package Manager always maps a package to one and only one registry, guaranteeing a consistent result regardless of network conditions.

For example, if you set up your own server where you are hosting some of the Unity packages, you could end up getting the package from the wrong registry if one registry is temporarily unavailable, even if the Package Manager always searches the registries in the same order. However, if you set up a scoped registry for your own server, the package always maps to one and only one registry, guaranteeing a consistent result regardless of network conditions.

Supported registry types

Unity Package Manager supports registries based on the npm protocol. You can use any off the shelf npm registry server and it should work, but Verdaccio is quick to set up and doesn’t require a lot of configuration.

Once you set up these servers, you can include them as scoped registries, which is the same concept that npm uses.

Limitations

Some npm registry servers do not support searching all packages with the /all Web API route. The Package Manager Search API relies on configured scoped registries to support this old npm API protocol. It has an HTTP endpoint that returns the metadata of all published packages (for example, https://registry.my-company.com/-/all).

If you have a tool that uses the Package Manager API to list available packages, you might experience unexpected results if your registry does not support the old protocol. For example, in this case, the Package Manager window does not display packages from those scoped registries in the All packages tab. However, this limitation does not apply to package resolution, so you can still manually add packages from scoped registries to the project manifestEach Unity Project has a Project manifest, which acts as an entry point for the Package Manager. This file must be available in the <project>/Packages directory. The Package Manager uses it to configure many things, including a list of dependencies for that Project, as well as any package repository to query for packages. More info
See in Glossary.

Setting up a scoped registry

To set up your scoped registries in your project manifest, use the scopedRegistries attribute, which takes an array of scoped registry configuration objects. Each object contains a name, a url location, and a list of scopes for each package name pattern you want to map to that scoped registry. When the Package Manager decides which registry to fetch a package from, it compares the package name to the scopes values and finds the registry whose scopes most closely match.

For example, in the project manifest below, there are two scoped registries, Main and Tools:

{
  "scopedRegistries": [
    {
      "name": "Main",
      "url": "https://my.company.com/registry",
      "scopes": [
        "com.my-company", "com.my-company.tools.foo"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Tools",
      "url": "https://my.company.com/tools-registry",
      "scopes": [
        "com.my-company.tools"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "dependencies": {
    "com.unity.cinemachine": "1.0.0",
    "com.unity.2d.common": "1.0.0",
    "com.unity.2d.animation": "1.0.0",
    "com.my-company.bar": "1.0.0"
  }
}

When a user requests the com.my-company.bar package, the Package Manager finds that the com.my-company.* namespace is the closest match to its name, and therefore fetches the package from the Main registry.

When a user requests the com.my-company.tools.foo package, the Main registry has a scope with a namespace that’s an exact match.

When a user requests the com.my-company.tools.animation package, the Package Manager finds that the com.my-company.tools.* namespace is the closest match to its name and therefore fetches the package from the Tools registry. Even though it also matches the Main scope, the com.my-company.* namespace is not as close a match.

When a user requests the com.other-company.bar package, the Package Manager doesn’t find a match in any of the scoped registries, and therefore fetches the package from the default registry.

Configuration

Configure scoped registries with the scopedRegistries attribute in the project manifest. The scopedRegistries attribute contains an array of entries (objects) that represent all of the registries.

Each registry object contains a unique name, a location (url), and an array of namespaces, or scopes. The Package Manager uses the scopes to match package names to registries.