Hierarchy Exporter

Capture Unity scene and prefab hierarchies as readable, structured documents — Tree, JSON, YAML, or Markdown.

Editor-only · Unity 2021.3+ · All render pipelines · No dependencies

Hierarchy Exporter is a Unity Editor tool for capturing the structure of any GameObject, prefab, or scene and exporting it in formats that are easy to read, share, and version-control. It was built around three constraints: output that's deterministic enough to diff in version control, native Editor integration that feels like part of Unity rather than an add-on, and the ability to handle scenes with hundreds of thousands of objects without locking up the Editor.

The tool is Editor-only — no runtime code ships with your game, and there are no external dependencies. Source is included.

See it in action

90 seconds — full feature walkthrough.

Hierarchy Exporter main window showing a Unity scene tree with syntax coloring, line numbers, and search active

Explore Any Unity Hierarchy

The main window is a fully interactive viewer with syntax coloring, line numbers, code folding, and VS Code–style search (case-sensitive, whole word, regex). Drag any GameObject, prefab asset, or scene asset into the target field — or right-click in Unity's Hierarchy window and choose Export Hierarchy… to open the tool with that object pre-selected.

Filter chips at the top of the preview showing counts for prefabs, inactive objects, and missing scripts

Find Scene Problems Fast

Filter chips at the top of the preview show counts at a glance: prefabs, inactive objects, missing scripts. Click any chip to filter the view to just those nodes. Useful for auditing scenes before a milestone, or hunting down broken references after a refactor.

Four Output Formats

Tree (human-readable with Unicode box-drawing), JSON (RFC 8259), YAML (YAML 1.2 Core Schema), or Markdown (CommonMark). Same hierarchy, four views — each tuned for a different audience: humans reading, machines parsing, or documents being shared.

A large JSON export showing nested GameObject components with serialized properties

Machine-Readable Output

JSON output is structured for downstream tooling — pipeline scripts, CI checks, scene diffing, automated documentation. Four detail levels (Structure, Components, Values, Serialized) let you control how deep the export goes, from names-only to fully serialized fields including custom MonoBehaviour data.

A Markdown export of a Unity hierarchy showing nested GameObject structure with bold names and tag annotations

Generate Documentation

Markdown output drops cleanly into pull requests, design docs, wikis, and GitHub issues. Combined with Serialized detail, it produces a complete Inspector-style snapshot that's both diff-friendly and reviewable by people who don't have the Editor open.

The View panel showing depth limit, expand prefabs, and include inactive controls; preview shows a large filtered hierarchy

Powerful Filtering

Beyond the filter chips, the View panel controls depth limit (1–10 levels or unlimited), prefab expansion, and inactive object inclusion. A content filter bar adds per-value filtering on Tag, Layer, and Prefab source via context menu — useful for narrowing massive scenes down to just the part you care about.

A massive Unity scene with 278,514 objects exported and rendered fluidly in the preview

Built for Large Scenes

Incremental traversal, viewport virtualization, and parallel formatting on background threads keep the preview responsive whether you're looking at 200 nodes or 280,000. Capture once, transform many times — re-formatting and re-filtering happen without re-walking the scene.

Compatibility

Unity: 2021.3 LTS or later (Unity 6 supported)
Render pipelines: Built-in, URP, HDRP, Custom
Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Runtime footprint: None — Editor-only tool
Dependencies: None
Source code: Included

What people use it for

Code reviews. When a scene's hierarchy changes, paste a Markdown export into the pull request description. Reviewers see what moved without opening Unity.

Pre-milestone audits. Filter to Inactive and Missing Scripts. See in seconds whether anything was left disabled or whether component references broke during a refactor.

Documentation for non-Unity teammates. Export a complex prefab as Markdown and drop it into a Notion page or design doc. Producers, QA, and other collaborators get readable structure without needing the Editor.

Diff-friendly version control. Commit a JSON or YAML export alongside your scene files for human-readable diffs. Reviewers see what actually changed — not the noise that Unity's native scene diffs produce.

Quick start

Open Tools > Hierarchy Exporter.
Drag a GameObject, prefab, or scene into the target field.
Choose a format and detail level.
Click Copy to Clipboard or Export… to save.

Right-click any GameObject in the Hierarchy window and choose Export Hierarchy… to open the tool with that object pre-selected.

Support

Questions, bug reports, and feature requests go to support@darnelix.com . Replies usually within a couple of business days.

Ready to try it?

Get on Unity Asset Store