> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://glua.bluejutzu.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Asset Paths

> Complete material, model and sound paths from your workspace and your Garry's Mod install, including content packed inside VPK archives.

Missing content is one of the few kinds of mistake Lua never tells you about. A
mistyped material renders as the purple-and-black checkerboard, a mistyped model
becomes the error sign, and a mistyped sound is simply silence. Nothing raises an
error, so nothing points at the line that caused it.

Paths written as string literals are indexed and offered as completions:

```lua theme={"system"}
Material("vgui/gradient-u")
ent:SetModel("models/props_junk/wood_crate001a.mdl")
surface.PlaySound("buttons/button15.wav")
```

Completion covers `Material`, `surface.GetTextureID`, `SetModel`,
`util.PrecacheModel`, `ClientsideModel`, `EmitSound`, `surface.PlaySound`,
`sound.Play` and `util.PrecacheSound`.

## Pointing it at your game

Your own `materials/`, `models/` and `sound/` folders are found automatically —
they sit beside `lua/` in an addon. To also complete base game content, set the
install directory:

```json theme={"system"}
{
  "glua.workspace.gamePath": "C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/GarrysMod"
}
```

Almost nothing in an install is a loose file: the base game and Half-Life 2
content live inside VPK archives. Those are read directly, so setting this takes
the index from a few hundred files to somewhere north of seventy thousand.

## Reporting missing paths

There is a rule for paths that do not resolve, `missingAsset`, and it is **off
by default**.

<Warning>
  Turn this on only if every asset you reference ships in this repository.

  Content mounted from the Workshop, or shipped in a separate content-pack
  addon, cannot be seen from your editor. Measured against a real 932-file
  gamemode with a full install configured, the rule reported 41–67% of
  references as missing — nearly all of them real files that simply live
  somewhere the editor cannot reach.
</Warning>

For a self-contained addon it is genuinely useful, and there it catches the
typos nothing else can:

```json theme={"system"}
{
  "diagnostics": {
    "missingAsset": "warning"
  }
}
```

Paths built at runtime are skipped rather than guessed at:

```lua theme={"system"}
Material("vgui/icons/" .. name)   -- not checked
Material(string.format("hud/%s", key))  -- not checked
```


## Related topics

- [Changelog](/changelog.md)
- [Realm Awareness in GLua](/features/realms.md)
- [Architecture](/contributing/architecture.md)
- [Other Editors](/reference/editors.md)