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FiveM asset protection

Asset groups, customer delivery, the prepare tool, and what the customer does after download.

In the merchant dashboard: Products → Asset products guide

What is FiveM Asset Protection

A third protection layer beside Lua and NUI. Supported assets are protected inside the same product license and fulfillment path. One license covers the whole asset group — not a license per file.

Supported types

ydr · ydd · yft · ytd · ymap · ytyp under stream/ or listed in fxmanifest files. Other files (such as .ybn and .ymf) stay unchanged.

Asset Group

Organization inside the product: name, description, and file list. From product details, create a group, discover assets from the package, then publish a Release.

During fulfillment

After Lua and NUI, if platform, plan, and product allow it, supported assets are encrypted into the same fulfillment ZIP. That ZIP does not contain originals of protected types.

What the customer does

  1. Place the resource in resources/ like any FiveM resource.
  2. Add it with ensure in server.cfg as usual.
  3. Download the prepare tool (direct download button) from the customer account (Downloads), from /tools/rukn-asset, or via the Discord delivery link.
  4. Run it once per version before starting the server: rukn-asset prepare --path <resource-folder> --license <key>.
  5. If the server is already running when the folder is added or updated, stop and start the whole server the normal FiveM way.

The full customer guide is on the tool page. After prepare, the first real Start is normal.

How the merchant sends the tool

From the asset products guide in the dashboard: open the tool page or copy its link for the customer. Do not put the tool inside the product ZIP.

Revoke, expiry, and suspension

A denied prepare writes no new files. An authoritative denial while running wipes prepared files and stops the resource. A full server restart after wipe does not restore assets without a valid prepare.

Limits

This protects the distribution ZIP and binds preparation to the license and build. After a successful prepare the originals exist on disk because FiveM needs them. It does not claim that an authorized server cannot extract assets.

In-dashboard guide: “Asset protection guide” tab.