Godot "could not load ... .pck" at runtime in CI

A Godot game loads its assets from a .pck pack file. When a smoke test in CI runs the exported binary and the pack is missing, mismatched, or not embedded, it reports that it could not load project data.

What this error means

Running the exported game in CI fails with "Couldn't load project data" or "could not load ... .pck", even though the export step succeeded.

godot

Error: Couldn't load project data at path ".".
Is the .pck file missing?
Failed to load project data: game.pck

Common causes

The .pck is not next to the binary

When export does not embed the pack, the binary expects a .pck with the same base name alongside it. A test that copies only the binary cannot find it.

A version mismatch between binary and pack

A pack built with a different Godot version than the runtime binary may fail to load.

How to fix it

Ship the binary and pack together

Keep game.x86_64 and game.pck in the same directory.
Or enable "Embed PCK" in the export preset so it is a single file.
Re-run the smoke test from that directory.

Terminal

# run the exported game next to its pack
cd build && ./game.x86_64 --headless --quit-after 1

Match runtime and export versions

Use the same Godot version for the export templates and any runtime binary in the test.

How to prevent it

Keep the binary and .pck together, or embed the pack.
Use one Godot version for export and runtime.
Run smoke tests from the export output directory.