Which cooking rules prevent editor-only assets from appearing in Shipping builds?

Asset Resolution in Packaged Builds

In Unreal Engine 5, assets that resolve correctly during play-in-editor (PIE) sessions may fail to load in a packaged Shipping build. This often occurs because the editor accesses the full project content and the local Derived Data Cache, whereas the cooking process only includes assets reachable via defined cooking rules.

Production Constraints

When targeting a production environment, the engine strips editor-only content and excludes assets not explicitly referenced by the maps listed for cooking. This creates a discrepancy where dynamic loading or soft references that work locally result in missing assets at runtime in the final package.

What specific configuration settings determine whether a dynamically referenced asset is flagged for inclusion during the cook process? Does the use of primary asset labels consistently override the default reachability rules for Shipping builds?