Preferences

Choose Anvil's run views, failure handling, tab retention, command history, scenario refresh, and account directories.

Open Settings → Tools → Anvil. It has two pages: Scenarios for how the tool window behaves, and Accounts for where account files live. Changes take effect after Apply or OK; Cancel leaves the previous values in place.

Scenarios

These preferences apply across the IDE. Remembered sections and command histories stay separate for each project.

Setting	Default	Behavior
Expand scenarios automatically	Off	Expand scenario entries with child processes when the Scenarios view loads. The Environment sidebar always starts expanded.
Reload scenarios after project sync	On	Prepare updated scenario definitions after a successful native project import, when no environment is active.
Open new tabs on	Last used	Open Environment, Console, Players, or the last section you selected in that project. A project's first run opens Environment.
Show the console when an environment fails	On	Reveal the failed run's Console for startup or lifecycle failures and unexpected process exits.
Keep tabs of successful runs	5	Close the oldest successful completed run tabs beyond this limit. Set 0 to retain all of them.
Remember commands	Current IDE session	Recall submitted console commands and successful non-sensitive action inputs while the project remains open. Choose Across IDE restarts to store history locally for each project.

Choose the view for new runs

Select Console when you mainly follow server startup and send commands. Select Environment when you mainly inspect topology and start individual components. Last used remembers your section choice within each project. Changing the preference affects new run tabs; it does not replace the view you are currently reading.

Failure handling reacts to the run's lifecycle state. A server printing an error message does not switch sections by itself. After Anvil reveals a failed run's Console, you can switch back to another section without subsequent log messages pulling you away. With the option off, a failed environment whose tab is not in view is reported in a notification instead.

Retain completed runs

The successful-tab limit applies after process cleanup has finished. Active and failed runs are preserved. Closing an old successful tab releases its retained console output; the remaining tabs keep their logs and details. This setting controls tabs in the current project session, rather than restoring running environments after an IDE restart.

Recall commands

Use the command input's history to choose a previous entry, then submit it explicitly. Histories are separate for each scenario source, scenario, target, and command type: server console commands, player commands, and player chat do not share a history. Common commands remain available across runs of the same scenario in that project.

Current IDE session keeps commands in memory. Across IDE restarts saves them in the project's local workspace settings. Switching back to the session option stops persistence and clears the stored history while keeping the current in-memory entries available. The project's recent submissions are bounded by IntelliJ's Console commands history size preference; each input shows only the entries matching its own target and command type.

Reload after project changes

With automatic reload enabled, a successful project sync prepares the selected scenario source's scenarios again. Imports arriving while a run is active wait until cleanup finishes. Several imports during that time result in one reload of the latest model. Failed imports do not trigger a rebuild loop. After you first open Anvil in a project, automatic reload continues for that open project even when the Anvil window is closed.

Turning this option off keeps initial discovery and explicit Reload Scenarios or Sync Project actions available. It does not watch every source edit; use Reload Scenarios after changing definitions without syncing the project.

Accounts

Setting	Default	Behavior
Global Accounts → Directory	`~/.anvil/accounts`	Accounts shared by every project on this computer.
This Project → Directory	A directory under `~/.anvil/projects`	Accounts that belong to the current project.
Use global accounts in this project	On	Whether runs and the account manager of this project include the global accounts.

By default each project keeps its accounts outside the project tree, so saved sign-ins cannot be committed with the source. Relative project paths are resolved from the IntelliJ project directory; avoid choosing a directory inside the project unless your version control ignores it. Use default fills in the default path. The project directory and the global switch are personal settings stored in the IDE workspace, not in shared project files. Changing a directory does not move existing account files.

Server Java versions, memory, ports, distributions, and startup timeouts remain in scenario and project definitions. See engine configuration for runtime settings.