Command-Line Tools

What are Command-Line Tools?

PatchKit Command-Line Tools allow you to manage your applications from a command-line interface. This set of tools enables you to:

• Query information about your applications and versions
• Create new applications and versions
• • Upload new version files
• Monitor the progress of new version processing
• Publish new versions

Using the tools provides two key benefits:

1. Automation - for example, in the context of continuous integration or delivery.
2. Faster uploads - you can upload locally computed binary differences instead of all application files.

Installation

To install the PatchKit Command-Line Tools, follow these steps:

1. Download the latest version of the tools that match your operating system from GitHub.
2. Unzip the file to a directory of your choice. We recommend C:\patchkit_tools on Windows and /opt/patchkit_tools on Mac and Linux.
3. If you’re on Mac, execute sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /opt/patchkit_tools to remove the quarantine attribute from the files. Otherwise, you’ll get an error when trying to run the tools.
4. Run it by double-clicking on the StartTools shortcut file on Windows or by executing patchkit-tools on Mac and Linux.

Upgrading

To upgrade (or downgrade) the tools to a different version, follow these steps:

1. Remove the previous installation directory.
2. Unzip the newly downloaded distribution from GitHub to the same location.
3. On Mac, run sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine INSTALLATION_PATH to remove the quarantine attribute from the files.

Getting Started

To effectively use PatchKit, it’s important to have a basic understanding of the command line, whether it be Windows’ command line, Mac OSX’s Terminal, or Linux’s Terminal. Here are some resources to help you get started:

• Windows Command Line Basics
• Getting Started with Terminal on Mac
• Introduction to the Linux Terminal

To use PatchKit’s tools, simply enter the following in the command line:

patchkit-tools tool-name [options,...]

To view a list of all available tools, run:

patchkit-tools --help

For specific information on a particular tool, such as the make-version tool, use the following command:

patchkit-tools make-version --help

Note that many of PatchKit’s tools require you to provide an API key. You can find your API key on your account page.

Deploying an Application

To deploy an application with PatchKit, use the make-version tool. This tool lets you create a new version of your application and upload the relevant files. Here’s how you can use it:

patchkit-tools make-version

The make-version tool will prompt you for the following information:

• API key: your unique API key for accessing PatchKit services
• Application secret: the secret code associated with the specific application you want to deploy
• Version label: the name of the new version you’re creating
• Path to the files: the location of the directory that contains the files you want to upload

You can also provide this information as command-line arguments, like so:

patchkit-tools make-version -f C:\my_game -a API_KEY -s APP_SECRET -l 1.0

Working with Channels

To work with channels, you need to follow the channels flow outlined in the Channels section.

First, use the make-version tool to upload and publish a group version. Remember to provide your group secret as the application secret, which you can find on your group’s page.

Next, use the channel-make-version tool to link the group version to a channel. The command is as follows:

patchkit-tools channel-make-version -a API_KEY -s CHANNEL_SECRET -l 1.0 --group-version GROUP_VERSION_ID

where GROUP_VERSION_ID is the ID of the group version you want to link to the channel, created in the previous step.