Dola AI assistant: chat and agents for Unreal

Dola AI’s chat is not a general chatbot sitting next to Unreal. It is the front door to a set of agents that work on the project you have open: the Dola plugin runs inside Unreal Editor, a local bridge connects it to the Dola desktop app, and agents use that bridge to read and change real assets. This post explains what happens between your message and the change in your editor, which specialist handles what, and how to phrase requests so they land.

New to Dola? Read What is Dola AI? first, then install the app.

• Stay in game-dev mode. The title-bar toggle (Ctrl+Shift+M) switches between game-dev and Modeling, and threads remember which mode they started in.
• Attach your project and run Install Dola plugin from the desktop projects list. Published plugin builds target Unreal Engine 5.7 on Windows.
• Open Unreal Editor (reopen it after a first install) so the bridge can handshake. See connect an Unreal project.
• Commit your project to source control before large requests, so every change is easy to review or roll back.

1. A supervisor agent, desktop-agent, reads the request and decides which specialist should handle it.
2. Small, contained tasks go straight to that specialist. Hard or game-sized requests produce a plan first, and nothing changes until you approve it.
3. The specialist uses its own tools — the live editor bridge for Blueprints and assets, file edits for C++, the local project index for search — and reports back.
4. For graph work, the Blueprint specialist compiles and saves before it claims the task is done.

The supervisor should not ask you to create a level for it or to paste editor console commands; if a step needs the editor, a specialist does it through the bridge.

• blueprint — Blueprint graphs under Content: nodes, pins, then compile and save.
• coder — Project source, including Source/*.h and Source/*.cpp with Unreal reflection macros.
• material — Unreal materials (M_*) and material instances (MI_*).
• level — Maps, actors, and layout. It does not invent level names.
• widget — UMG Widget Blueprints (WBP_*).
• animation, niagara, audio, sequencer, ai — AnimBlueprints and montages, Niagara systems, sounds and MetaSounds, Level Sequences, and behavior trees with their blackboards and AI controllers.
• asset — Finding, creating, and tidying files under Content.
• editor — Starting and stopping Unreal Editor and the bridge handshake (still marked work in progress).

Support specialists sit beside them: researcher fetches web and docs pages and recalls project knowledge, reviewer looks over diffs and proposals, and project orients itself in your project layout and index. None of the three change your project. The full list is the agent roster.

The Blueprint specialist works on graphs that already exist under Content. It lists asset paths, edits the graph through the bridge, then compiles and saves. Name the Blueprint and describe one change you can check, for example:

In BP_Door, open the door over one second when the player overlaps the trigger box, then compile and save.

Then look at the graph in the editor and press Play. If something is off, say what you saw rather than starting over. Keep each request to one Blueprint or one behavior; a long wish list is better as a plan you approve step by step. The walkthrough is in first Blueprint workflow.

The coder specialist reads, searches, and edits headers and .cpp files under Source/, using Unreal conventions such as UCLASS, UPROPERTY, and UFUNCTION. Engine API lookup lets it check class and function names instead of guessing. A request might read:

Add an editable MaxStamina float to AMyCharacter and a BlueprintCallable function that drains it.

Dola does not compile the editor for you. Build as you normally do, and if the compile fails, paste the error back into the same thread. The coder does not touch Blueprint, UMG, or Niagara graphs — that work belongs to the graph specialists. More in first C++ assistance.

The material specialist works with Unreal materials and material instances — the M_* and MI_* assets in your Content folder. Point it at an asset by name and say what should change, such as a parameter value on a specific instance. Keep material requests separate from Blueprint requests so each specialist gets a clear job.

Modeling mode is different: there, colour and PBR on the Babylon mesh belong to the model-materials specialist, and nothing is written into Unreal. See Modeling mode is a Babylon studio.

• Name things. Use asset names and paths, class names, and level names that exist. Agents are told not to invent them.
• Say what done looks like. “The door opens when I walk into the box” is easier to verify than “improve the door”.
• One change at a time for small edits; ask for a plan for anything game-sized and approve it before work starts.
• Check in the editor. Look at the graph, play in editor, build the C++. Feed what you saw back into the thread.

Chat history and project indexes are designed to stay on your computer. With Dola-hosted models, model calls go through dolaai.pro, which forwards them to OpenRouter and the model provider, and usage is counted against the credits in your monthly plan. With your own API key, calls go from the app to your provider and Dola is free. Details: models, pricing, local vs hosted.