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import unityHubPreferencesLicensesAddButton from '/assets/images/unity-hub-preferences-licenses-add-button.png';

Activation

:::caution Having issues with activation?

Check out the Troubleshooting / Common Issues section.

:::

:::info

Refer to Unity's official licensing documentation for more details about Unity activation.

:::

To run Unity in a CI/CD pipeline, you need to activate your license. For details about how the activation process works, refer to the following scripts:

In this guide, we will cover

  • Activation methods for different license types.
  • Setting up your Unity license in GitLab CI/CD.

Choosing the Right Activation Method

To activate Unity, select the method that matches your license type.

Personal License

Follow these steps if you are using the free version of Unity and do not have a serial from a paid plan. However, note that Unity Personal licenses produce a “serial” token in the .ulf file.

The activation process for Unity Personal licenses is as follows:

  1. Activate locally with Unity Hub on your machine and Locate the .ulf (see the OS-specific paths).
  2. Extract the serial from the .ulf file.
  3. Store serial and Unity credentials in GitLab’s CI/CD Variables:
    • UNITY_SERIAL (extracted from .ulf)
    • UNITY_EMAIL
    • UNITY_PASSWORD

1. Setting Up Your Unity License

  1. Install Unity Hub: Download and install Unity Hub on your local machine.

  2. Log in to Unity Hub: Use the Unity account linked to your CI setup to log in. Ensure you're using the correct account to activate the intended license.

  3. Activate Your License: Manually activate by navigating to:

    • Unity Hub > Preferences > Licenses and click the Add button
    • Select Get a free personal license.

    :::info Ensure File Creation

    Even if a license appears in Unity Hub, a .ulf file may not have been created. To ensure the file is generated, make sure to click the Add button and proceed with the activation steps. Do not skip this step.

    Unity Hub interface showing the Preferences window with the Licenses tab selected and the Add button highlighted

  4. Locate the .ulf file: Depending on your operating system, the Unity license file will be located in one of these paths:

    • Windows: C:\ProgramData\Unity\Unity_lic.ulf
    • Mac: /Library/Application Support/Unity/Unity_lic.ulf
    • Linux: ~/.local/share/unity3d/Unity/Unity_lic.ulf

If you have trouble locating the .ulf file, follow these steps:

  • Check activation: Ensure you’ve logged into Unity Hub and completed the step "3. Activate Your License".
  • Reveal hidden files: These folders may be hidden by default, so enable the option to view hidden files in your file explorer.
  • Use any platform: Licenses are not tied to a specific Unity version or platform. You can activate the license on any operating system, such as Windows, and use it for builds on another platform, like Ubuntu. Simply retrieve the .ulf file from the platform most convenient for you.

2. Extracting the Serial from a personal license

  1. Extract your Unity serial from the .ulf file:

    This command decodes the internal DeveloperData field to reveal the serial used for activation (even for Personal).

    On macOS or Linux:

    cat Unity_lic.ulf | grep DeveloperData | sed -E 's/.*Value="([^"]+)".*/\1/' | base64 --decode

    On Windows using Powershell:

    Get-Content .\Unity_lic.ulf |
Select-String -Pattern 'DeveloperData' |
ForEach-Object {
 $b64 = $_ -replace '.*Value="([^"]+)".*', '$1'
 [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($b64))
}

:::info Expected Serial Format

The serial should look like this: XX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX.

:::

3. Storing the Serial in GitLab CI/CD

Add the extracted serial to your GitLab project’s CI/CD Variables:

  • UNITY_SERIAL: The serial extracted from the .ulf file
  • UNITY_EMAIL: The email address associated with your Unity account
  • UNITY_PASSWORD: The password for your Unity account

:::info Variables are not set in your pipelines?

Make sure you unchecked the "protected" checkbox for these variables if you want them to be available for all branches and merge requests.

:::

:::caution Security Warning

Keep your extracted serial and credentials secure. Never commit them to version control or share them publicly.

:::

You're all set! The pipeline will use these credentials to activate Unity automatically. 🎉

Professional License

If you have Unity Plus or Unity Pro, you have an official serial key from Unity subscriptions. For GitLab:

  1. Get your serial (format: XX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX).
  2. Go to Settings → CI/CD → Variables in your GitLab project:
    • UNITY_SERIAL
    • UNITY_EMAIL
    • UNITY_PASSWORD

:::info Using "protected" variables will make them available only to protected branches

Make sure you unchecked the "protected" checkbox for these variables if you want them to be available for all branches and merge requests.

:::

:::caution Security Warning

Keep your extracted serial and credentials secure. Never commit them to version control or share them publicly.

:::

You're all set! The pipeline will use these credentials to activate Unity automatically. 🎉

License Server

If your organization uses a floating license server, you can supply a server URL with the environment variable UNITY_LICENSING_SERVER in your GitLab variables. The pipeline (via before_script.sh) automatically tries to acquire a floating license at the start of the job and return it after. For example:

variables:
  UNITY_LICENSING_SERVER: 'ssl://your-license-server.company.com:443'

:::info Using "protected" variables will make them available only to protected branches

Make sure you unchecked the "protected" checkbox for these variables if you want them to be available for all branches and merge requests.

:::

No need to set UNITY_EMAIL, UNITY_PASSWORD, or UNITY_SERIAL if you exclusively use the license server method.

You're all set! The pipeline will use the server to activate Unity automatically. 🎉

Debugging activation Locally with Docker

To debug or confirm activation locally (instead of pushing every time), you can run:

UNITY_VERSION=2022.3.12f1
IMAGE=unityci/editor
IMAGE_VERSION=3
DOCKER_IMAGE="$IMAGE:$UNITY_VERSION-base-$IMAGE_VERSION"

docker run -it --rm \
  -e "UNITY_EMAIL=username@example.com" \
  -e "UNITY_PASSWORD=example_password" \
  -e "UNITY_SERIAL=EXA-MPLE-SERI-ALKE-Y123" \
  -v "$(pwd):/root/project" \
  $DOCKER_IMAGE \
  bash

# Then inside the container, run:
xvfb-run --auto-servernum --server-args='-screen 0 640x480x24' \
  unity-editor \
  -logFile /dev/stdout \
  -batchmode \
  -nographics \
  -username "$UNITY_EMAIL" -password "$UNITY_PASSWORD" -serial "$UNITY_SERIAL"

If it finishes without errors, a .ulf should be located in /root/.local/share/unity3d/Unity/Unity_lic.ulf. You can use or reference that file in your GitLab environment.

:::caution Security Warning

Executing shell commands directly in your terminal can expose your credentials in your shell history. To avoid this, consider writing the commands to a shell script and executing the script instead.

:::

Next Steps

Once your license is activated in GitLab CI, you can:

  • Run Unit tests with the test job in your .gitlab-ci.yml.
  • Create Builds for multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, WebGL).
  • Deploy or publish artifacts (e.g. WebGL to GitLab Pages).
  • Explore advanced usage (e.g., coverage reports, caching, license server expansions).