Export vs Adopt

Export and Adopt both decompile. They differ in what happens next, and that difference is the whole point.

What keeps them apart is structural, not procedural

An export cannot name the asset it came from:

/Game/FX/NS_X
   └─ export ─> DFX/Decompiled/Game/FX/NS_X.dfs
                Name="Decompiled/FX/NS_X"
                   └─ build ─> /Game/Decompiled/FX/NS_X      (the original is untouched)

So the whole decompiled tree is ordinary source — watched, built on save, linted and CI'd — and the original stays untouched however the file is edited.

Exports written before this arrangement still name the original. They are refused with DFX8013 rather than obeyed; re-exporting replaces them.

Exporting an asset that is already a mirror is refused too — it would leave two sources claiming one asset — and the toast links to the source the mirror was built from.

Adopt, in six steps

Decompile

Refuse if anything is unrepresentable, listing what (DFX8010).

Work out the source path from the mount point

/Game/FX/NS_X → <Project>/DFX/FX/NS_X.dfs; /MoonToon/FX/NS_X → <MoonToon>/DFX/FX/NS_X.dfs.

Check nothing else already declares this asset

If something does → refuse (DFX8011). Two sources would overwrite each other on alternate builds.

Confirm

Listing the file to write and the asset to rebuild. (From Python, bSkipConfirmation suppresses the modal.)

Write the file, rebuild the asset, stamp provenance

Re-decompile and compare byte for byte

A mismatch is DFX8012, and the first differing line is logged.

Step 1 is what makes step 6 meaningful: with no known gaps, a mismatch is a real defect rather than an expected loss.

Note:

DFX8012 leaves the source file in place — the asset was rebuilt from it, so the text is authoritative either way — and logs the first differing line for you to judge.

Which one to use

Warning:

After an adopt, that asset is build output: hand edits are wiped on the next rebuild. That is exactly what you asked for by adopting — just make sure the team knows.

The same thing from the command line

# print it
pwsh -File Plugins/DreamFX/.skill/dfx.ps1 decompile /Game/VFX/NS_Explosion

# write it to a file
pwsh -File Plugins/DreamFX/.skill/dfx.ps1 decompile /Game/VFX/NS_Explosion -Out DFX/Decompiled/NS_Explosion.dfs

# a whole tree
pwsh -File Plugins/DreamFX/.skill/dfx.ps1 decompile-all -Path=/Game/VFX

-NoDefaults prints every input, including ones equal to a pristine module's. That is diagnostic only — the result is not meant to be maintained; it answers "what did the baseline hide?".