Scoped Registries

Scoped Registries allow Unity to communicate the location of any custom package registry server to the Package Manager so that the user has access to several collections of packages at the same time. Here are some important concepts to help you understand this feature:

Package providers set up custom registry servers to host and distribute custom packages in addition to the Unity registry. Package consumers set up scoped registries for each project in order to access a custom package provider’s registry server.

Scoped Registries can help to:

• Provide new functionality by distributing tools, libraries, and other assets.

  As a provider, you can create your own registry to distribute tools and scripts (or other types of assets) with version numbers that indicate how mature the package is, or whether updates introduce breaking API changes or minor fixes: Semantic Versioning. And your code can depend on code in other packages because the Package Manager supports package dependencies.

  As a consumer, your experience of browsing and installing third-party custom packages in the Package Manager is the same as for Unity’s packages.

• Extend existing Unity’s package features.

  As a consumer, you can have a seamless experience where the custom package overrides the Unity package without the having to manually switch registries or explicitly install a different package version. This is because you can map packages to a specific registry so that Package Manager fetches from either the Unity registry or a custom package registry server.

• Access packages in a closed network environment.

  Some organizations work inside a closed network, which makes it difficult to access Unity’s own package registry. In these cases, the organization can set up their own package registry on a server inside their closed network. The network administrators can then periodically synchronize with Unity’s package registry to make sure the scoped registry has the latest set of packages available.

If you are a package consumer, see Managing scoped registries for a project to find out how to connect to an existing custom package registry server in your Unity project. If you are a package producer, see Sharing your package to find out which package registry servers are supported and links to information on how to set them up to use with Scoped Registries.

Note: If you are setting up a scoped registry that points to a package registry server with restricted access, you can configure Package Manager to pass your npm authentication token to the server. For more information, see Scoped registry authentication.

Importing scoped registries

If you are working in a shared project, and another user adds a scoped registry to the project, Unity warns you that a new scoped registry has been added.

When you click the Close button, the Package Manager project settings window appears so you can add, modify, or remove scoped registries for your project.

If you click the Read more button instead, Unity opens this page in your default web browser.

Managing scoped registries for a project

To manage the scoped package registries in your project, you can either edit your project manifest file directly or use the Package Manager project settings window to let Unity modify the manifest for you.

The project manifest uses a scopedRegistries property, which contains an array of scoped registry configuration objects. Each object contains the following properties:

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, “General” and “Tools”:

{
    "scopedRegistries": [
        {
            "name": "General",
            "url": "https://example.com/registry",
            "scopes": [
                "com.example", "com.example.tools.physics"
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "Tools",
            "url": "https://mycompany.example.com/tools-registry",
            "scopes": [
                "com.example.mycompany.tools"
            ]
        }
    ],
    "dependencies": {
        "com.unity.animation": "1.0.0",
        "com.example.mycompany.tools.animation": "1.0.0",
        "com.example.tools.physics": "1.0.0",
        "com.example.animation": "1.0.0"
    }
}

When the Package Manager looks up the com.example.animation package, it finds that the com.example namespace is the closest match to its name, and therefore fetches the package from the “General” registry.

When the Package Manager looks up the com.example.tools.physics package, the “Tools” registry has a scope that exactly matches the package name.

When the Package Manager looks up the com.example.mycompany.tools.animation package, the Package Manager finds that the com.example.mycompany.tools namespace is the closest match to its name and therefore fetches the package from the “Tools” registry. Even though it also matches the “General” scope, the com.example namespace is not as close a match.

When the Package Manager looks up the com.unity.animation package, the Package Manager doesn’t find a match in any of the scoped registries, and therefore fetches the package from the default registry.