Ruleset reference

This section documents every field of a WAGE ruleset and every kind of condition, action, initializer, and behavior node. It’s the authoritative companion to the Build a game tutorials — read the tutorials to learn the patterns, keep the reference open to look up the exact shape of a field.

Source of truth

WAGE rulesets are pure data validated against TypeScript types in the shared protocol package:

• packages/wage-protocol/src/rules.ts — Ruleset, Condition, Action, Initializer, BotClass, BehaviorNode, ItemType, ItemSpawnSpec, InteractionSpec, VisibilityRule, and friends.
• packages/wage-protocol/src/world.ts — the map types (MapDefinition, MapZone, Shape, MapPoint, MapAnnotation), Team, GameTheme, and the runtime World/Player/Item shapes.

This reference is hand-authored from those files. Where the two ever disagree, the TypeScript types win — they’re what the engine actually enforces.

Accuracy

Reference verified against the protocol types as of commit 6323f85. Every condition/action/initializer/behavior kind documented here corresponds 1:1 to a member of the discriminated unions in rules.ts. Examples are taken from real shipped games under apps/wage-engine/src/games/ and cite their source file.

How to read it

• Types are shown in a TypeScript-ish shorthand. ? marks an optional field.
• Examples are YAML (the engine reads YAML or JSON interchangeably).
• A selector is same / other / any / { byTeam: id } / { byId: id } — see Selectors & values.
• A value is a literal or a { ref: "path" } — see Selectors & values.

The sections

Section	Covers
Top-level fields	name, version, catalog, teams, player counts, playerJoinStates, countdownSeconds, and the field index
Map & zones	map: zones, shapes, exclusions, points, annotations
Conditions	Every when kind
Actions	Every do kind
Selectors & values	same/other/any/team/id, { ref }/{ lit }, bindings
Items & interactions	itemTypes, items, interactions
Bots & behavior trees	bots, BehaviorNode, tunable, teamAssignment
Theme, objectives & visibility	theme, objectives, visibility
onStart & initializers	One-shot setup steps

Minimal ruleset

The smallest thing the engine will run is a name, a version, teams, a map, and a rules array (which may be empty):

name: My Game
version: 1
teams: []
map:
  zones:
    - id: play_area
      name: Play area
      placeable: true
      required: true
      shapes:
        - { id: play_area-shape-0, kind: rectangle, from: { x: -100, y: -100 }, to: { x: 100, y: 100 } }
rules: []

Everything else — state, rules, items, bots, theme — is layered on top.