Auditing a project is not about perfectionism, it is about the handoff not exploding. A few minutes checking structure, naming and dependencies saves the render night, the "it opens with errors" message, and the archive nobody can reopen in a year.
1. Check the $JOB structure
Confirm the project follows a standard $JOB folder structure: scenes in hip, caches in geo and sim, textures in tex, HDAs in otls. Files in the wrong place are the first sign a project will not resolve elsewhere.
2. Validate asset and cache naming
Run every asset and cache against your naming convention: no spaces, consistent separators, padded version tokens, sequences with consistent frame padding. Inconsistent names are what turn a browsable project into a guessing game.
3. Audit HDA versions
Check that Houdini Digital Assets are namespaced and versioned, that definitions live with the project, and that there are no duplicate or orphaned assets. Follow the HDA versioning checklist so a scene does not open with missing-asset errors on the next machine.
4. Find orphaned and mis-pathed caches
Look for caches written to local drives or scratch folders, caches with no matching scene, and File Cache outputs that could collide. A cache naming pass catches the ones that will overwrite each other or fail to resolve after a move.
5. Check engine-export readiness
If the project hands off to a game engine, verify export naming, scale and axis before delivery using the Unreal handoff checklist or Unity export naming guide. Catching a wrong unit scale here is far cheaper than in-engine.
Run the whole audit in your browser
Hive does every step above in one pass: point it at a project folder and it checks $JOB structure, asset and cache naming, HDA and OTL versions, orphaned caches, and engine-handoff naming, then gives you a report you can export. The scan runs locally in the browser - nothing about your project is uploaded - so you can audit a project without opening Houdini and without moving a single file.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need Houdini open to audit a project?
No. Hive scans the project folder in your browser and checks structure, naming, HDA versions and caches without launching Houdini or moving files.
Is my project uploaded when I audit it?
No. The scan runs locally in the browser; nothing about your project is sent to a server.
What should a Houdini project audit cover?
At minimum: $JOB folder structure, asset and cache naming, HDA and OTL versioning, orphaned or mis-pathed caches, and engine-export readiness for Unreal or Unity.