Exclusive Systems

Exclusive systems are systems that Bevy will not run in parallel with any other system. They can have full unrestricted access to the whole ECS World, by taking a &mut World parameter.

Inside of an exclusive system, you have full control over all data stored in the ECS. You can do whatever you want.

Note that exclusive systems can limit performance, as they prevent multi-threading (nothing else runs at the same time).

Some example situations where exclusive systems are useful:

• Dump various entities and components to a file, to implement things like saving and loading of game save files, or scene export from an editor
• Directly spawn/despawn entities, or create/remove resources, immediately with no delay (unlike when using Commands from a regular system)
• Run arbitrary systems with your own scheduling algorithm
• …

See the direct World access page to learn more about how to do such things.

fn do_crazy_things(world: &mut World) {
    // we can do anything with any data in the Bevy ECS here!
}

You need to add exclusive systems to the App, just like regular systems, but you must call .exclusive_system() on them.

They cannot be ordered in-between regular parallel systems. Exclusive systems always run at one of the following places:

• .at_start(): at the beginning of a stage
• .at_end(): at the end of a stage, after commands from regular systems have been applied
• .before_commands(): after all the regular systems in a stage, but before commands are applied

(if you don't specify anything, the default is assumed .at_start())

fn main() {
    App::new()
        .add_plugins(DefaultPlugins)

        // this will run at the start of CoreStage::Update (the default stage)
        .add_system(do_crazy_things)

        // this will run at the end of CoreStage::PostUpdate
        .add_system_to_stage(
            CoreStage::PostUpdate,
            some_more_things
                .at_end()
        )

        .run();
}