🚀 Get Started

🔗 Which version for which Stride

Each toolkit release is built against one Stride release and will not work with another, because the engine's own packages change between them. Match the two:

Stride	Toolkit packages
4.4.1	`1.0.0-preview.68`
4.4.0	`1.0.0-preview.67`
4.4.0	`1.0.0-preview.66`
4.4.0-beta8	`1.0.0-preview.65`
4.4.0-beta5	`1.0.0-preview.63`
4.3	`1.0.0-preview.62`
4.2	`1.0.0-preview.61`

dotnet add package ... --prerelease always takes the newest preview, so on an older Stride pin the version explicitly, for example dotnet add package Stride.CommunityToolkit --version 1.0.0-preview.62.

🛠️ Prerequisites

Ensure the following are installed. If you already have Stride 4.4 installed, they are present.

Microsoft Visual C++ v14 Redistributable (x64)
- vc_redist.x64.exe (~19 MB)
- You may be asked to restart your PC after installation.
.NET 10 SDK x64: Download (~216 MB)
- Verify installation:
```
dotnet --info
```
IDE of your choice
- Visual Studio 2026
  - Visual Studio 2026 Community (Free)
- Visual Studio Code (Free, ~95 MB)
  - Install the C# Dev Kit extension
  - Restart VS Code to ensure the dotnet command works
- Rider (Free for non-commercial use)

📦 Adding the NuGet package

The toolkit is a set of packages named Stride.CommunityToolkit and Stride.CommunityToolkit.*. The core package holds the game, entity, camera and rendering extensions; physics, shapes, charts, effects and the UI integrations are separate packages. Add them through your IDE or the command line. They work in regular Stride game projects and in code-only projects.

To add the package via the command line:

dotnet add package Stride.CommunityToolkit --prerelease

Note

Stride.CommunityToolkit brings in the Stride packages a code-only project needs, including the asset compiler build step. On Linux, add Stride.CommunityToolkit.Linux as well; see Create Project.

Additional toolkit packages

Stride.CommunityToolkit
- The core library: extensions for regular Stride projects and the code-only approach. It brings in the Stride packages a code-only project needs, including the asset compiler build step.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Bepu
- Bepu Physics helpers, the recommended physics package: scene setup with physics, primitives with colliders, the grabber, shape queries, triggers and the debug view.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Bullet
- Bullet Physics helpers, for projects on Stride's Bullet-based physics. Kept building; no new features are planned, since the focus is Bepu.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Box2D
- Box2D.NET as an experimental 2D physics alternative: a Box2D world bound to Stride entities, with contact, hit and sensor events. Not on NuGet yet; it runs from a clone of the repository.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Skyboxes
- A skybox for code-only projects in one call, from a bundled HDR texture.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.DebugShapes
- Immediate-mode debug shapes: lines, arrows, cubes, spheres, capsules, cylinders, cones, circles, quads and bounds, drawn from any script for one frame or a set time.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Shapes
- Vector shapes whose outline stays a constant few pixels wide at any zoom or distance, measured per fragment by a signed distance function: discs, rings, rounded rectangles, wire boxes, camera-facing billboards and thick 3D lines, thousands per frame in one instanced draw call. Also the reference grid.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Charts
- Charts built from meshes at runtime, with no assets to author: function plots, parametric curves, scatter and area series, with axes, grid, legend and cursor drawn in pixels. Not on NuGet yet; it runs from a clone of the repository.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Effects
- The pieces that ship a shader of their own: night-vision and thermal post-processing, and GPU picking.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.ImGui
- Dear ImGui through Hexa.NET.ImGui: a system that draws ImGui over the scene with Stride's input, plus ready-made debug windows. For debugging tools, editor windows and in-game UI.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.ImGuiNet
- The same through ImGui.NET, for projects that already depend on it. Not on NuGet yet; it runs from a clone of the repository.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Linux
- The Linux package for code-only projects: the asset compiler as a build-only dependency and the native libraries it needs, copied into the build output for linux-x64.
Stride.CommunityToolkit.Windows
- Superseded: the core package brings in the asset compiler and holds WindowsDpiManager. This package is empty and only depends on the core, so a project still naming it keeps building. Reference Stride.CommunityToolkit instead.