The SteamOS Devkit Client facilitates loading game builds directly from your development machine to your Steam Frame, and includes support for other development activities. You can read more about installing and using this tool over in the Steam Deck documentation here.

Pair your Steam Frame

First, make sure you have Developer Mode on in Settings > System > Developer Mode. Then go to Settings > Developer > Pair new host.



Then you can launch the SteamOS Devkit Client on your PC. Go to the Devkits tab and click Register next to the entry for your frame.



Confirm pairing on the headset and you're ready to deploy!

Deploying with the SteamOS DevKit Client

Launch the SteamOS DevKit Client from Steam. Under Devkits you'll find Connect to devkit by IP where you can put in frame or your custom hostname if you've changed it. Then click on the Title Upload button.

• Name: This will be the name that appears in your Steam Library on the headset.
  
• Local Folder: The location you want to upload files from. This will upload everything from the selected directory recursively.
  
• Start Command: If you made an APK put in the name of your APK. If you made a Linux or Windows build it should be the relative path (from the Local Folder) to the Linux binary or Windows executable (.exe)
  
• Runtime: Select Android if its an APK, Steam Linux Runtime 3.0 ARM64 (Sniper) if you made a Linux ARM64 binary. Steam Play (Proton) for Windows.

Click the Upload button, and once complete, click the Start button in order to run the application on the headset.

After uploading, the game will also appear in your Steam Library, under Library > Non-Steam > Devkit Game: (Your Game Title).

Command-line arguments and environment variables

You can set command-line options under the game's Properties in Steam like you would for any other application. The text in this field gets appended to the launch command (i.e. MyGame <options>).

Environment variables on Linux are specified before the executable (e.g. ENABLE_FOO=1 MyGame). You can do this in the Steam command line option field using the special %command% argument (e.g. ENABLE_FOO=1 %command%).