Action manifest

This documentation is for upcoming SDK 1.0.15.

Action Manifest files

OpenVR uses a JSON file called the "action manifest" to allow developers to provide certain input details about their applications. Specifically, this file contains:

The list of action sets used by the application
The list of actions in each of those action sets
Default binding files for each controller type
Localized strings for each action set and action name

This file can be located anywhere on disk under the application's install directory. The application tells OpenVR where the file is with the IVRInput::SetApplicationManifestPath() function. The full path to the file must be provided; relative paths are not accepted.

If the path to the action manifest is also set in the Steam Partner site, the two paths must match. If there is a mismatch, the path provided in the partner site is used, and the call to IVRInput::SetApplicationManifestPath returns VRInputError_MismatchedActionManifest.

Action manifest file format

{
      "default_bindings": [
        {
          "controller_type": "some_controller",
          "binding_url": "mygame_bindings_some_controller.json"
        }
      ], 
  "actions": [
    {
      "name": "/actions/main/in/OpenInventory",
      "requirement": "mandatory",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    {
      "name": "/actions/driving/in/HonkHorn",
      "requirement": "optional",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    {
      "name": "/actions/driving/out/SpeedBump",
      "type": "vibration"
    },
    {
      "name": "/actions/driving/in/Throttle",
      "requirement" : "suggested",
      "type": "vector1"
    },
    {
      "name": "/actions/main/in/RightHand",
      "type": "pose"
    },
    {
      "name": "/actions/main/in/RightHand_Anim",
      "type": "skeleton",
      "skeleton": "/skeleton/hand/right"
    }
  ],
  "action_sets": [
    {
      "name": "/actions/main",
      "usage": "leftright"
    },
    {
      "name": "/actions/driving",
      "usage": "single"
    }
  ],
    "localization" : [
        {
            "language_tag": "en",

            "/actions/main" : "My Game Actions",
            "/actions/driving" : "Driving",

            "/actions/main/in/OpenInventory" : "Open Inventory",
            "/actions/main/in/RightHand" : "Right Hand",
            "/actions/main/in/RightHand_Anim" : "Right Hand Animation",

            "/actions/driving/in/HonkHorn" : "Honk Horn",
            "/actions/driving/out/SpeedBump" : "Hit Speed Bump",
            "/actions/driving/in/Throttle" : "Throttle"
        }
    ]
}

default_bindings - This array contains the list of binding files to load for this application.

controller_type - This is the name of the controller type that this binding file is for. Common controller types are:

vive_controller
oculus_touch
holographic_controller
gamepad

binding_url - The URL or relative file path of the binding config file for this controller type. Relative paths are relative to the action manifest JSON file itself, so files in the same directory only need to provide a filename.

Actions

actions - This array contains a list of all actions used by the application. Actions can be listed in any order.

name - The path to an action. Paths take the form /actions/actionsetname/in/actionname for input actions or /actions/actionsetname/out/actionname for output actions (like haptics.) This path is passed to `IVRInput::

requirement - The degree to which the user should be prompted to bind this action in the UI. This must be one of:

mandatory - The action must be bound or the binding file cannot be saved. Use this sparingly.
suggested - The user will get a warning if this action is not bound. This is the default if no requirement is specified.
optional - The user can bind this action, but will not be warned if it is not bound. This is often used for actions that are not bound on all hardware.

type - The type of the action. This must be one of:

boolean - The action is a simple on/off event like pulling a trigger or pressing a switch.
vector1, vector2, vector3 - The action is a 1, 2, or 3 dimensional float. These are used for throttles, smooth motion, etc.
vibration - The action is a output haptic vibration. Include one of these per type of haptic output in your application so they can be bound to different output devices if the user has them available.
pose - The action is the 6-DOF position and orientation of a device tracked by the tracking system.
skeleton - The action is used to retrieve bone transform data from controllers that support skeletal animation. Actions of type Skeleton also need to set the skeleton parameter to identify which skeleton they are expecting. The supported skeletons are /skeleton/hand/left and /skeleton/hand/right.

Action Sets

action_sets - This array contains information about each action set that is used to drive the binding UI.

name - The path of the action set. Action set names are of the form /actions/action set name

usage - The style that should be used in the binding UI for this action set. This must be one of:

leftright - The user will see left and right hand controllers and be able to bind each one independently.
single - The user will see just one controller by default and anything bound on the left controller will automatically be copied to the right controller.
hidden - This action set will not be shown to the user.

Localization

localization - This array contains localized strings for action and action set names for any number of locales.

language_tag - The language tag is the ISO-639-1 + ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 code for the locale that this section of the action manifest file refers to.

All localization entries use the path of the action or action set as the key and the localized string as the value. These strings will be shown to the user instead of the action or action set name whenever the user is using that language. If the user's language is not present, English strings will be used.

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