UE Data Assets and Tables

Target engine: UE 5.8. APIs below are verified against the 5.8 headers; older forms are listed under "Deprecated — do not use".

This skill covers designer-authored game data and the loading paths that bring it into memory: UDataAsset/UPrimaryDataAsset, UDataTable/UCurveTable, soft references, FStreamableManager, UAssetManager primary assets and cook rules, IAssetRegistry queries, the DataRegistry plugin and UDeveloperSettings. Build.cs modules: Engine and CoreUObject for data assets, tables and soft pointers; AssetRegistry for registry queries; DeveloperSettings for settings classes; DataRegistry for data registries. Deep dives live in asset loading patterns and data-driven design patterns.

Context

Read .agents/ue-project-context.md if it exists (module names, conventions, enabled plugins, custom UAssetManager subclass, registered primary asset types). Do not stop if it is missing.

Identify the area from the request and the codebase. Ask only when two plausible readings would produce different code.