Basis Package Manager

⚠️ Work in progress — not ready for release. This is an early preview under active development. Expect bugs, breaking changes, and missing features. Not recommended for general use yet — try it at your own risk.

A desktop app for cloning and living with BasisVR/Basis: clone the repo, add community packages from GitHub or GitLab, keep the core and packages up to date, see exactly what you have changed in the Basis source, and install the Unity version and platforms Basis needs.

Built with AvaloniaUI (.NET 9), styled to match basisvr.org.

Download

Grab the latest installer for your platform from the Releases page:

Platform	File	First run
Windows	*-win-Setup.exe	Unsigned for now, so SmartScreen may warn — choose More info → Run anyway.
Linux	*.AppImage	chmod +x it, then run. (Needs FUSE, which most distros ship.)
macOS	*.pkg (Apple Silicon)	Unsigned — right-click → Open, then Open the first time.

The app installs per-user (no admin required) and keeps itself up to date — see below.

Updating

Basis Package Manager updates itself from GitHub Releases. When a newer version is published, an update banner appears at the top of the window: click Update now and it downloads the release and restarts onto it. You can also check on demand from Settings → About → Check for updates.

Running from source (dotnet run) skips the in-app updater — update with git pull.

Features

• Installs — clone BasisVR/Basis (choose folder + branch), or register an existing clone. Each install shows its branch, commit, required Unity version, and whether it is behind upstream or has local changes. One-click Update Core runs git pull --ff-only.
• Packages — install curated Basis packages, or add any community UPM package from a GitHub or GitLab git URL. Discovery is powered by the registry (below).
• Local Changes — a git status of your install with a per-file unified diff, so you can see what you have modified in the Basis source.
• Unity Editors — detect installed editors and install the exact version Basis targets via Unity Hub, choosing the platform modules (Windows, Android, Linux, macOS, …).
• Settings — default clone location, catalog URL, Unity Hub override, and detected tooling paths.

Requirements

• .NET 9 SDK
• Git on your PATH (used for clone / pull / status / diff)
• Unity Hub for editor installs

Package registry server

src/BasisPM.Server is a Hangar-style package registry where the community can browse and submit Basis-compatible git packages (GitHub or GitLab). It runs as an ASP.NET Core app for development, and exports a static site for hosting.

Run it live:

dotnet run --project src/BasisPM.Server   # → http://localhost:5133

• Browse UI — search, source/category filters, and package cards with copy-paste install instructions, styled like the desktop app.

• Real data, never faked — stars / forks / last-updated are pulled from the GitHub and GitLab APIs at build time. Curation lives in src/BasisPM.Server/seed/packages.json (PR-editable); the "Submit a package" button opens a pre-filled GitHub issue.

• Static export for any static host (e.g. GitHub Pages):

  dotnet run --project src/BasisPM.Server -- generate ./dist
  

  writes index.html + packages.json + catalog.json with the real stats baked in.

• catalog.json is format-compatible with the desktop app — point Settings → Package Catalog URL at …/catalog.json and the app's Packages tab serves from the registry.

• Package images — give a package a promo image on its card (like Hangar) by dropping a square PNG named after the package id into src/BasisPM.Server/wwwroot/icons/ and opening a PR — e.g. icons/com.you.mypackage.png. Nothing else to edit. Images are self-hosted only (never a remote URL, so there's no SSRF or tracking surface); a package with no image falls back to its emoji icon. On merge, CI (icons.yml) auto-resizes to ≤256px and strips metadata so any reasonable image becomes a good size. PNG with transparency, ~256–512px square, looks best.

Run

dotnet run --project src/BasisPM.App

Releasing (maintainers)

Push a semver tag and CI builds + publishes installers for Windows, Linux and macOS to a single GitHub Release; the in-app updater promotes it to existing users automatically:

git tag v0.1.0
git push origin v0.1.0

See RELEASING.md for the full process, versioning, and how to set up code-signing certificates (Windows + macOS). Every push/PR to main is compile-checked by .github/workflows/ci.yml.

Layout

• src/BasisPM.App — Avalonia UI (MVVM: ViewModels/, Views/, Styles/)
• src/BasisPM.Core — services and models (GitService, UnityHubService, BasisInstallService, catalog + manifest handling)
• src/BasisPM.Server — package registry: browse UI + JSON API + static-site generator