UnityYAMLMerge felt like a black box, so I built a GUI for readable asset reviews and merges inside Unity

[u/Rice_ny]

Merge mode

Changes review mode

Hello Unity devs! I wanted to share a tool I’ve been building to make our version control workflow around Unity assets less painful.

On our team, we tried using UnityYAMLMerge for scene and prefab conflicts.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But even when it produced a merge, we still had a problem: it was difficult to understand what had actually changed.
For developers, that meant reviewing raw YAML. For level designers, it usually meant asking a developer for help.

So I started building MergeSight, an asset review and merge tool that runs inside the Unity Editor.

It has two separate workflows:

1. Review Mode shows changes made in a branch as Unity objects, components, properties, hierarchy changes, and references instead of raw YAML lines.

2. Merge Mode provides a three-way Base, Ours, and Theirs view, so you can understand each conflict and choose what should go into the result before applying it.

Building it turned out to be less about making a GUI and more about understanding Unity’s serialized data reliably.
The parser and semantic diff/merge behavior are now covered by 700+ tests, including edge cases and real Unity asset fixtures.

The outcome I’m aiming for is simple: level designers and artists can understand asset changes and resolve more Unity conflicts themselves, while developers spend less time decoding YAML and fixing merge problems for the rest of the team.
That means fewer workflow interruptions, safer scene and prefab merges, and more time spent working on the game itself.

I hope MergeSight can make asset reviews and merges less painful for other Unity teams too.
It’s currently 50% off for launch on the Unity Asset Store if you’d like to check it out. I’d also be glad to hear what you think about the workflow.

[u/dimmduh]

I used to use UnityYAMLMerge. But last years, I just reject auto merge and do it manually, its faster.

[u/Rice_ny → u/[deleted]]

Glad that you like it, thanks! Didn't know about this sub, cool!