To ensure a consistent design and development experience, be sure to effectively structure, name, and manage your files and folders. In this section, we review some best practices and examples for file and folder naming, along with additional recommendations for file management, including access and caching.

Folder structure and file naming best practices

When designing your folder structure and naming conventions, you generally want to ensure that all file/folder names are clear, detailed, and communicate meaning without being too lengthy. This will enable a clear understanding of each file, improve file/folder discoverability, and minimize any conflicts when searching for specific files.

While there is no absolute correct way to approach naming/directory structures, here is an example that clearly ensures that the file/folder labels increase in specificity from left to right.

{Type}/{Major_Category}/{Medium_Category}/{Minor_Category}/{major}_{minor}_{varient}.{ext}

Using the structure above, this could be the location for an .fbx file of a blue oak tree:

Assets/Props/Trees/Oak/tree_oak_blue.fbx

When designing a naming structure that includes more detailed files/folders, you can also use labels that reflect what these represent to the user. For example, character types, or attributes of surfaces like “hard” vs “natural”.

File and folder naming practices to avoid

To further simplify your naming conventions and ensure your team can find what they’re looking for, we generally recommend you avoid names and labels that meet the following criteria:

Overly complex terminology or slang. Be sure to consider a global audience.

Labels that might be confused with other teams.

Names that are similar to the tools, products, or code components your team uses on a regular basis. These can be especially challenging after a product/feature is pushed live, and new collaborators are unaware of these code names.

Third party software or hardware products, especially those that are related to trademarks and intellectual property owned by other companies.

Although sometimes unavoidable, the use of acronyms can become a challenge as you scale your project and bring on more team members.

File, folder and project build best practices

File and folder management is a massive topic, and one that will only grow with the scale of your app. Here are just a few more recommendations for you to keep in mind as you look to kick off your next project.

Minimize folder depth: Do your best to keep folders as flat as possible, ideally limiting yourself to a maximum folder depth of 5. This will help save your team time locating files, and help them avoid giving up from the sheer size and complexity of your folder structure.

Versioning: Create a staging area for your builds and increment your version numbers, especially if you plan to publish on multiple platforms. It’s generally recommended to use a schema that aligns with the following example: {Major}/{minor}/{# based on hot fix}. Check out semver.org for more information on semantic versioning.

Build APK and scene bundle independently: As your scene will include a number of heavy assets, we highly recommend building these separately. This will enable you to change content or core functionality independently, saving you a great deal of time when iterating on your APK.

Minimize anti-virus software scanning: While security should always be considered, virus scanning software that scans each file upload can slow your build time by 50-60%. Needless to say, all things considered, we recommend excluding anti-virus scanning from your build folders.

Ensure proper firewall configuration: Remember that network firewalls can block access to specific services such as cache servers, distributed build agents, multiplayer servers, etc. Make sure you configure your firewalls in a way that doesn’t lead to headaches down the road.

Use consistent build targets: As simple as this is, plan your file management process so that your team is uploading to the same target output folder. This keeps your files organized, while avoiding the headache of not knowing which file was uploaded to what folder, when, and by whom.

Consider accesss level management: As the scope of your app and the size of your team grow, you may want to ensure a certain level of control over the access to certain folders, determining who can write, edit, and view these files. For example, this could include specific types of prefabs that you want to ensure only the assigned artist can make adjustments.

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