ShadowDusk.Cli 0.18.0

ShadowDusk.Cli (ShadowDuskCLI)

Cross-platform drop-in replacement for MonoGame's mgfxc shader compiler, as a dotnet tool: compiles .fx to MonoGame/KNI .mgfx and FNA D3D9 fx_2_0 .fxb on Linux, macOS, and Windows — no fxc.exe, no Wine, no Windows SDK. Same flags, same output format, same exit codes, and MGCB-parseable stderr diagnostics, so a build step that invokes mgfxc can call ShadowDuskCLI instead with nothing downstream changing.

Install

dotnet tool install --global ShadowDusk.Cli

Use

ShadowDuskCLI <input.fx> <output.mgfx> /Profile:OpenGL
ShadowDuskCLI <input.fx> <output.mgfx> /Profile:DirectX_11
ShadowDuskCLI <input.fx> <output.mgfx> /Profile:DirectX_12
ShadowDuskCLI <input.fx> <output.mgfx> /Profile:Vulkan
ShadowDuskCLI <input.fx> <output.fxb>  /Profile:FNA

Flags mirror mgfxc (/Profile, /Debug, /I, /Defines, /DxbcBackend, --mgfx-version), plus --target-runtime to pick the backend + format together by name. Run ShadowDuskCLI --help for the full list.

/Profile:DirectX_12 should be compiled on Windows: DXIL signing runs through the Windows-only dxil.dll, so a non-Windows DX12 compile emits unsigned DXIL that retail D3D12 rejects (warned as SD0214). Other targets are host-independent.

ShaderToy / GLSL input

In addition to .fx, the CLI accepts a single-pass ShaderToy / GLSL image shader (.glsl, .frag, .fs) and converts it to a self-contained .fx before compiling — so a ShaderToy mainImage (or a plain void main() fragment shader) compiles straight to a loadable .mgfx/.fxb for any target:

ShadowDuskCLI shader.glsl shader.mgfx /Profile:OpenGL

Detection is automatic (by extension, with a content sniff for off-convention files); .fx is never sniffed and behaves exactly as before, and no flag is ever required for correct output. The non-required escape hatch --input-format auto|fx|glsl forces a route for an oddly-named or genuinely-ambiguous file. Unsupported GLSL constructs fail loudly with an MGCB-parseable file(line,col): error SDxxxx: message diagnostic pointing at the original .glsl. --print-uniforms lists the drivable effect parameters (e.g. iResolution, iTime, custom uniforms) you must set each frame at runtime. The converted shader needs a small per-frame harness (set the uniforms, draw a fullscreen triangle) — see the ShaderToyViewer sample.

The output container defaults to MGFX v10, which loads on every MonoGame 3.8.1.263+ and KNI runtime — you never need a flag for correct output. For newer runtimes, --mgfx-version 11 opts into a faithful MonoGame MGFX v11 container (MonoGame 3.8.5+, opt-in/experimental). To pick a whole target in one flag, --target-runtime <name> (monogame-gl, monogame-dx, monogame-gl-v11, kni-knifx, fna) selects the backend and container together — e.g. --target-runtime kni-knifx emits KNI's KNIFX v11 container.

Using it with the MonoGame content pipeline

Invoke ShadowDuskCLI directly from your build script / Makefile / CI step and /copy: the resulting .mgfx into your content, or compile at runtime with ShadowDusk.Compiler and hand the bytes to Effect. Both work on Linux/macOS build agents where mgfxc cannot run.

Aliasing this tool to mgfxc on PATH does not make MGCB use it. Measured against dotnet mgcb 3.8.2.1105, 3.8.4.1, and 3.8.5: MGCB compiles .fx in-process and never launches an external effect compiler, so there is no process for the alias to intercept. The PATH override still works for a build step that genuinely launches a process named mgfxc.

Self-contained single-file binaries (no .NET install needed) for win-x64, linux-x64, osx-x64, and osx-arm64 are attached to each GitHub Release.

Links

• Documentation: https://kaltinril.github.io/ShadowDusk/
• Source / issues: https://github.com/kaltinril/ShadowDusk
• Library flavor (compile in-process at runtime): ShadowDusk.Compiler