Verify First — Meta Quest Development

What you need to know before reading the rest of this

You are about to be told to call tools you may not recognize by name. Read this section first so the rest makes sense.

• Meta Quest is Meta's line of standalone VR / mixed-reality headsets (Quest 2, Quest 3, Quest 3S, Quest Pro). They run an Android-based OS.
• Horizon OS is the name of that operating system. It is forked from Android, ships on every Quest headset, and Meta updates it on its own cadence (separate from upstream Android). Many APIs are Horizon-OS-specific and have no analog in stock Android.
• hzdb ("Horizon Debug Bridge") is a Rust CLI tool published by Meta as @meta-quest/hzdb on npm. Invoke via npx -y @meta-quest/hzdb <args> — no install required; npx always pulls the latest published version. It wraps adb and Meta's developer APIs into higher-level commands for Quest device development: list devices, install apps, capture Perfetto traces, search Meta Quest documentation, query 3D asset libraries, automate UI interactions, etc. hzdb is the primary action layer for Quest dev work — the equivalent of what gcloud is for GCP or git is for source control.
• hzdb MCP server is a built-in mode of hzdb that exposes a focused set of tools to AI coding agents over the Model Context Protocol. The relevant tools for this skill are:
  • meta_docs_search — search the official Meta developer documentation
  • meta_docs_get_page — fetch the full text of a specific docs page
  • hzdb_device — query and control connected Meta Quest headsets (list, info, connect, reboot, battery, controllers, proximity, etc.)
  • hzdb_app — query and manage installed apps (list, info, install, uninstall, launch, stop, clear)
  • hzdb_files — file ops on a connected headset (ls, push, pull, rm, mkdir)
  • hzdb_run — catch-all for any hzdb subcommand without a dedicated tool (perf, ovrmetrics, ui, audio, casting, window, unity, sideload, asset, config, …). Its JSON Schema is generated from clap so the available subcommands and their typed args are visible to you in the tool definition.
  • hzdb_cli_help — discover hzdb subcommands and flags as markdown
• Meta SDKs you may not recognize that are commonly used in Quest projects: Meta XR All-in-One SDK (Unity), Meta XR Core / Interaction / Platform / Voice / Movement SDKs, Meta Spatial SDK (Kotlin / Android panels), IWSDK (Immersive Web SDK for WebXR), MRUK (Mixed Reality Utility Kit), Presence Platform, Horizon Platform SDK. These ship on their own release cadences, separate from Quest OS.
• OVR vs Meta XR — older Quest Unity content and most of the public web references the OVR namespace and the "Oculus Integration" Unity package. Both have been deprecated in favor of the Meta XR All-in-One SDK family. Most training data still recommends the deprecated names. Verify before recommending anything in this area.

Why this skill exists

Meta Quest and Horizon OS evolve fast. Meta SDKs ship every few weeks. APIs get renamed before public release. Manifest entitlements and store policies update monthly. Entire SDK families (Meta Spatial SDK, IWSDK, Horizon OS shells) post-date most LLM training corpora.

You almost certainly have stale knowledge about Quest specifics. The package names you remember have been renamed. The Unity menu paths have moved. The setup steps that worked on a prior Horizon OS version silently broke on the current one. The "OVR" namespace you reach for has been split across half a dozen Meta XR packages.

If you answer a Meta Quest question or write Quest-targeted code without verifying first, you will hallucinate. The user will not notice until their build fails, their app gets rejected from the store, or their AndroidManifest doesn't publish.

This skill is a hard gate. Treat it as a precondition, not a suggestion.

When this skill applies

You MUST run the verification flow below if ANY of the following is true for the current task:

• The user mentions Meta Quest, Quest 2 / 3 / 3S / Pro, Oculus, Horizon OS, MR, VR, XR, OpenXR (on Quest), Meta SDK, Meta XR, OVR, Spatial SDK, IWSDK, MRUK, Movement SDK, Voice SDK, Presence Platform, Horizon Platform SDK, hand tracking, passthrough, anchors, scene mesh, casting, eye tracking, body tracking, controllers, or platform compliance / store policy
• The repository contains any of:
  • Unity files with OVRPlugin, "Meta XR All-in-One SDK", or com.meta.xr.* in manifest.json / Packages/manifest.json
  • Spatial SDK gradle plugin (com.meta.spatial.plugins.*)
  • AndroidManifest with com.oculus.*, com.meta.quest.*, or horizon feature declarations
  • Package IDs starting with com.meta.* or com.oculus.*
  • .meta files indicating Unity, or Quest_*.uplugin / *.unrealhxr files
• The user's question references developers.meta.com/horizon, developer.oculus.com, oculus.com/sparkle-updates, or any Meta Quest documentation URL
• The agent is about to recommend any Meta SDK API, namespace, package, or AndroidManifest entitlement
• The agent is about to answer a question about app review, Meta Horizon Store submission, VRC ("Virtual Reality Check"), content rating, or distribution
• The agent is about to write adb commands targeting a specific device
• The agent is about to claim what is or isn't installed on the user's headset

If you are not sure, the answer is YES — run the verification flow.

The verification flow

Step 1 — Verify against authoritative documentation

Before writing or recommending anything Quest-specific, call the meta_docs_search MCP tool. If MCP is not available, use the equivalent hzdb CLI command hzdb docs search.

MCP:

meta_docs_search(
  query="<the specific claim or API you are about to make>",
  scope="auto",   # or unity / unreal / spatial_sdk / android / native / web /
                  #    policy / distribution / design
  mode="verify"
)

CLI:

hzdb docs search "<query>"

If you need exact wording (manifest entries, full API signatures, store policy text, code snippets), follow up with meta_docs_get_page on the canonical_url or doc_path returned by verify. Never paraphrase a truncated snippet when correctness matters.

CLI:

hzdb docs fetch "<canonical_url_or_path>"

Step 2 — Verify the user's actual environment

Before suggesting which device a command should target, claiming an app is installed, recommending an adb command, or writing install / launch / sideload steps, query the user's actual hzdb-managed environment.

MCP:

hzdb_device(action="list")                          # ALWAYS start here
hzdb_device(action="info", target="<serial>")
hzdb_app(action="list", target="<serial>")
hzdb_app(action="info", package="<package>")
hzdb_run(subcommand=["config", "show"])             # catch-all for misc reads

CLI:

hzdb device list
hzdb device info <serial>
hzdb app list -d <serial>
hzdb app info <package>
hzdb config list

The user may have zero, one, or many headsets connected via USB and WiFi — multiple Quest models, dev kits, sideloaded builds, pinned older Horizon OS versions. Your training data has zero visibility into this.

Step 3 — Discover hzdb capabilities when unsure

If you do not know which hzdb subcommand or hzdb_run invocation fits the user's request, call hzdb_cli_help (MCP) or hzdb --markdown-help (CLI) first. Do not invent flags or subcommands — hzdb gets new functionality every release and your training data does not include it.

For long-tail subcommands (perf, ovrmetrics, ui, etc.), the hzdb_run tool's input schema enumerates every subcommand path and its typed args via JSON Schema oneOf. You can read it directly from the tool definition rather than guessing.

MCP:

hzdb_cli_help(topic="perf")     # focused help for a subcommand tree
hzdb_cli_help()                 # full top-level command tree

CLI:

hzdb --markdown-help
hzdb perf --help

Specific failure modes you cause by skipping verification

These are concrete, recurring failures that the verification flow prevents:

• Deprecated APIs that compile but no-op at runtime. OVR-namespace function names that were forwarded for one release and removed the next. Code looks correct, builds clean, runs without errors — and produces no observable behavior on device.
• AndroidManifest entitlements that get the app rejected from the Meta Horizon Store. The required entitlement names changed; an entitlement you "know" is needed is no longer recognized; a new mandatory feature flag is missing.
• Meta SDK package names that don't exist. Meta XR All-in-One SDK is a family of UPM packages with version-specific names; guessing produces "package not found" errors.
• Unity menu paths from outdated tutorials. Meta XR menu items moved between SDK versions; setup steps that reference Oculus → ... may now live under Meta XR → ... or have been removed entirely.
• Spatial SDK class names that were renamed before public release. The Spatial SDK iterated on its public API late; many class and method names in older blog posts or training data are wrong.
• Passthrough / anchor / scene-mesh setup that worked on a prior Horizon OS version. Permission flow, system overlay APIs, and manifest features changed across Quest OS versions. What worked in a tutorial last year may silently fail on current Horizon OS.
• OpenXR extensions that are listed but not supported on Quest's runtime. Generic OpenXR documentation lists extensions Meta has not implemented. Always verify against Meta's documentation, not the OpenXR spec.
• Wrong device targeted. Recommending a adb shell command without first listing devices, then watching it fail or hit the wrong headset.
• Store policy claims that are out of date. Review requirements, rating buckets, and distribution rules update — verify before answering user questions about submission.

Anti-patterns

Do not do any of these:

• Answer a Meta Quest question without calling meta_docs_search first because "you remember" the answer
• Recommend an adb shell command without first calling hzdb_device(action="list") to see what's connected
• Guess a package name, namespace, or class name from training data when a verify call would resolve the ambiguity
• Paraphrase a verify-result snippet for a manifest entry, API signature, or store policy when exact wording is required (use meta_docs_get_page)
• Search the open web for Meta Quest documentation when authoritative Meta docs are one tool call away
• Skip verification because "the docs probably say X" — verify, then say X
• Assume hzdb does not have a subcommand for what the user wants — check hzdb_cli_help first

Tone and presentation

When you do verify, present your answer with citations and a brief recency note. The user is paying for the verification step — show that it happened.

Per the current Meta Spatial SDK docs (verified just now via
meta_docs_search):

  <answer grounded in retrieved content>

Source: <canonical_url returned by the tool>

This both proves the verification ran and trains the user to trust verified-answer responses over from-memory ones.

If the hzdb MCP tools are not available

If the agent host does not have the hzdb MCP server installed, fall back to the hzdb CLI invoked via npx (same authoritative backend, same content) and tell the user once how to install the MCP server for next time:

npx -y @meta-quest/hzdb mcp install <your-tool>   # claude-code | cursor | claude-desktop | vscode | ...
npx -y @meta-quest/hzdb mcp install project       # install at the repo root for this project only

The verify step is required, not optional — run it via npx -y @meta-quest/hzdb docs search "<query>" even on the very first question if the MCP server is not yet wired up.

Related skills

• hzdb-cli — full hzdb CLI reference (commands, flags, examples)
• hz-vr-debug — on-device debugging with logs and screenshots
• hz-perfetto-debug — Perfetto trace analysis for jank / GPU / CPU bottlenecks
• hz-vrc-check — store-publishing and VRC compliance validation
• hz-store-submit — end-to-end Meta Horizon Store submission
• hz-spatial-sdk — Meta Spatial SDK API guidance
• hz-platform-sdk — Horizon Platform SDK API guidance