How-To: Register a Gameplay Tag

last-verified: 2026-07-10 against f9ebdc9a3

Gameplay tags are the project's shared vocabulary — cooldown groups, ability identities, cue names, input slots all are tags. Tag pickers throughout the tools only offer tags that are already registered, so when the tag you need is missing from a picker, register it here first.

You need this less often than you used to: the create wizard derives an ability's own tags from its asset name and registers them on Finish, and the chain stamp registers chain wiring tags itself. What still gets registered by hand: cue tags, and anything outside the derived set.

Add the tag

Tags live in Config/Tags/GameplayTags.ini. Add one line per tag:

GameplayTagList=(Tag="Cooldown.MyAbility",DevComment="Per-ability cooldown group granted by GE_Cooldown_Shared")

Conventions to follow:

• Fit the existing namespace. Open the file and find the family your tag belongs to — Cooldown.* for cooldown groups, GameplayCue.* for presentation, Input.Ability.* for input slots, and so on. Pickers are filtered by namespace, so a tag in the wrong family simply won't appear where you need it.
• Always write a DevComment. It shows as the tooltip in tag pickers. The project convention is to say what the tag drives and cross-link the design doc — e.g. an ability tag's comment points at its one-pager (One-Pager: Design/Abilities/MyAbility.ability.md).

If the editor is open while you hand-edit the file, restart it so the new tag is picked up. (Adding the tag through the editor's Project Settings — GameplayTags section — also works and takes effect immediately; either route ends up in the same file.)

Then use it

Go back to whatever picker was missing the tag — the wizard, the Kit Composer, a Blueprint property — and it will be there. Nothing else to wire: registration just makes the name exist.