Installation

Prerequisites

That's it. DXC binaries come from the Vortice.Dxc NuGet package automatically, and the SPIRV-Cross native binary ships transitively through the Silk.NET.SPIRV.Cross.Native NuGet — both are restored by dotnet restore into the package cache. There is no separate native install for the in-memory OpenGL/WebGL path.

The library (the product)

Add the ShadowDusk.Compiler package to your project:

dotnet add package ShadowDusk.Compiler

Then call it from code — see the In-Memory Quickstart:

var compiler = new ShadowDusk.Compiler.EffectCompiler();
var result = await compiler.CompileAsync(hlslSource,
    new ShadowDusk.Core.CompilerOptions { Target = ShadowDusk.Core.PlatformTarget.OpenGL });

The CLI tool (ShadowDuskCLI)

Install the drop-in mgfxc replacement as a global tool:

dotnet tool install --global ShadowDusk.Cli

This provides a ShadowDuskCLI command with the same flags and .mgfx output as MonoGame's tool. See the CLI Reference and the Drop-in mgfxc guide.

Default-target caveat: the CLI's default /Profile is DirectX_11, while the library's Target default is OpenGL. Always pass the target you want explicitly. This is called out again on the Quickstart and CLI Reference pages.

The in-browser (WASM) library

For in-browser runtime compilation (KNI / Blazor WebAssembly), add the ShadowDusk.Wasm package. It self-registers as Blazor static web assets — see In-Browser (KNI/Blazor WASM).

Targeting FNA

FNA uses the same ShadowDusk.Compiler package — there is nothing FNA-specific to install on ShadowDusk's side:

dotnet add package ShadowDusk.Compiler

Two things differ from the MonoGame/KNI path, both on FNA's side, not ShadowDusk's:

  • FNA is not a NuGet package. Unlike MonoGame and KNI, FNA is consumed as a project reference — a git clone/submodule of FNA-XNA/FNA plus its native fnalibs (SDL3, FNA3D, FAudio) — per FNA's own setup docs. (Community/unofficial FNA NuGet builds exist, but the project reference is FNA's documented, supported path.) You add ShadowDusk.Compiler to that existing FNA project exactly as above.
  • Different output container. For PlatformTarget.Fna, ShadowDusk emits a D3D9 fx_2_0 .fxb (Shader Model ≤ 3), not the .mgfx MonoGame/KNI load. FNA reads it through MojoShader at runtime via new Effect(graphicsDevice, fxbBytes). See Compiling for FNA in the quickstart.

The FNA path is cross-platform and uses the same vkd3d-shader native as the cross-platform DirectX backend — which ships inside the NuGet package for all four desktop RIDs, so there is nothing to restore or install (the restore script is only for building ShadowDusk itself from source).

DirectX backend & native tools

For DirectX (DX11), the default, cross-platform backend is vkd3d-shader (DxbcBackend.Vkd3d); its native binaries for all four desktop RIDs (win-x64, linux-x64, osx-x64, osx-arm64) ship inside the NuGet package — nothing to install, and DX compilation works out of the box on Linux, macOS, and Windows with host-independent (byte-identical) output. The Windows-only d3dcompiler_47 backend (a system DLL already part of Windows — you don't install it; the most fxc-faithful correctness oracle) is opt-in via CompilerOptions.DxbcBackend = DxbcBackend.D3DCompiler. (The Restore Native Tools script is only for building ShadowDusk itself from source.) See DirectX DXBC (vkd3d) Path. The OpenGL/WebGL in-memory path needs no extra restore and is cross-platform out of the box.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/kaltinril/ShadowDusk.git
cd ShadowDusk
./tools/restore.sh        # Linux / macOS  (.\tools\restore.ps1 on Windows)
dotnet build ShadowDusk.slnx

See Restore Native Tools for what the restore script does.

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