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rojo syncback runs in the opposite direction of rojo serve. Instead of pushing files from disk into Roblox Studio, it reads a Roblox file and writes the instances it finds back to your project’s filesystem. This is how you migrate an existing .rbxl or .rbxlx place — or a .rbxm or .rbxmx model — into a Rojo project.

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Supported input formats

ExtensionDescription
.rbxlBinary place file
.rbxlxXML place file
.rbxmBinary model file
.rbxmxXML model file

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Basic usage

rojo syncback [project] --input <file>
  • [project] — path to the project file or directory. Defaults to the current directory.
  • --input / -i — path to the Roblox file to read from. Required.
# Syncback a binary place file into the current project
rojo syncback --input MyGame.rbxl

# Syncback a model file into a specific project
rojo syncback models/Tool.project.json --input Tool.rbxmx
Syncback reads your project file to understand where instances should live. Any instance that is referenced in the project (or is a descendant of one that is) gets placed in the appropriate file on disk.

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Flags

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--list
boolean
Print a list of all files and directories that would be added or removed to stdout before writing. Green lines are additions, red lines are removals. Can be combined with --dry-run.
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--dry-run
boolean
Run syncback without writing anything to disk. Rojo prints how many files would be added or removed, then exits. Useful for previewing the effect of a syncback before committing to it.
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--non-interactive / -y
boolean
Skip the confirmation prompt. By default, syncback tells you how many files it will write or remove and asks Is this okay? (Y/N). Pass -y to answer yes automatically, which is useful in CI or scripted workflows.

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Interactive prompt

Unless --non-interactive or --dry-run is set, syncback always pauses before writing to disk: 
Would write 14 files/folders and remove 2 files/folders.
Is this okay? (Y/N):
Type Y to proceed or anything else to abort without making changes.

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Controlling syncback with syncbackRules

You can add a syncbackRules object to your project file to configure what syncback includes and excludes.
default.project.json
{
  "name": "my-game",
  "tree": { "$className": "DataModel", "$path": "src" },
  "syncbackRules": {
    "ignoreTrees": [
      "ServerStorage/ImportantSecrets"
    ],
    "ignorePaths": [
      "src/ServerStorage/Secrets/**"
    ],
    "ignoreProperties": {
      "BasePart": ["Color"]
    },
    "syncCurrentCamera": false,
    "syncUnscriptable": true
  }
}

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syncbackRules fields

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ignoreTrees
string[]
A list of paths in the Roblox instance hierarchy to skip. Paths are written as slash-separated instance names relative to the root, for example "ServerStorage/ImportantSecrets". Any instance at that path and all of its descendants are excluded from syncback.
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ignorePaths
string[]
A list of glob patterns matched against the filesystem path an instance would be serialized to. Instances whose output path matches any pattern are skipped.When a pattern ends with /**, Rojo automatically generates an additional pattern that matches the parent directory itself (so both the directory and its contents are excluded). Set createIgnoreDirPaths: false to disable this behavior.
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ignoreProperties
object
A map of Roblox class names to lists of property names that should not be synced back. Inheritance is respected — specifying "BasePart": ["Color"] also excludes Color from all classes that inherit from BasePart.
"ignoreProperties": {
  "BasePart": ["Color", "Material"],
  "Script": ["Disabled"]
}
​
syncCurrentCamera
boolean
default:"false"
Whether to include the Workspace.CurrentCamera instance in syncback. Defaults to false because the camera is typically ephemeral and not part of a project’s source.
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syncUnscriptable
boolean
default:"true"
Whether to sync back properties that cannot be set by scripts (i.e., properties that are not scriptable in the Roblox Studio plugin). Defaults to true.
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ignoreReferents
boolean
default:"false"
Whether to skip serializing referent properties such as Model.PrimaryPart. Defaults to false.
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createIgnoreDirPaths
boolean
default:"true"
When true, glob patterns in ignorePaths that end in /** are automatically expanded to also match the directory they refer to. Set to false to disable this convenience behavior.

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Combining flags for a safe workflow

A common workflow is to preview changes before applying them: 
# 1. See what would change, without writing
rojo syncback --input MyGame.rbxl --dry-run --list

# 2. Apply the changes non-interactively
rojo syncback --input MyGame.rbxl -y
Syncback can overwrite or delete files in your project directory. Always commit or back up your work before running syncback on a project with uncommitted changes.

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