Cheats & Debug Mode

Straight answer: Sandustry has no official cheat codes, but it ships with a hidden developer debug menu — "cell inspector, lighting overlays, chunk borders, authorization zones and more." Community methods have enabled it; none are supported, and the main guide has been flagged on Steam.

Read This First: The Status Warnings

The Steam guide these methods come from carries two moderation banners in its page code: "This item has been removed from the community because it violates Steam Community & Content Guidelines" and "This item is incompatible with Sandustry." The guide can disappear or be invalidated at any time.

The guide's own author is upfront: "It is not supported by the developers, and there is no promise it will keep working after an update — a patch could rename the key or wire the tab up properly."

Also important: "The game tracks a cheatsUsed flag on saves alongside the modsUsed one." Which actions set it — and what it affects (achievements?) — is unknown (unverified). Test on a copy of your save.

What the Debug Menu Actually Is

Per the guide, the debug tools shipped in the build — "a developer tool that shipped in the build, not a mod and not an exploit" — but the checkbox to enable them lives on an options tab the game never displays: the tab list is hardcoded to general, video, audio, and controls.

Once enabled, it provides a cell inspector, light and filter overlays, chunk borders, authorization zones — and a debug brush that "can place material directly into the world," which is why players use it as a de-facto sandbox mode.

The localStorage Method (EA-era Community Method — May Stop Working)

• Step 1: With the game running, press Ctrl + Shift + Backspace to open the Chromium developer tools, then open the Console tab.
• Step 2: Run localStorage.setItem("debug.active", "true"). Optionally add localStorage.setItem("debug.drawChunks", "true") for chunk borders.
• Step 3: Fully close and reopen Sandustry — the flag is read once at boot; reloading a save is not enough.
• To disable: set the flag to "false" or remove the keys, then restart. The guide author also published a Workshop "DebugToggle" mod as an alternative.

Posted August 14, 2026 for the EA build. Whether it still works on the current version is unverified — re-check after every patch.

The Old bundle.js Method (Demo-Era, Historical)

Demo-era players (May 2025) enabled debug by overriding bundle.js in the developer tools — editing the debug flag from inactive to active — then using E+click and F+click to spawn solids and dynamic elements. "I just tried this and it worked. Literally spawns anything you want."

It came with its own warnings: never spawn the empty box element (freezes the game), avoid Hide UI, and delete the override after game updates. This is historical demo-era material — treat it as documentation, not a current recommendation.

What About a Money Cheat?

No verified money/gold-modification command exists for the current version in any source we have captured — threads asking for one get pointed to the debug spawning above, external achievement tools, or simply optimizing production.

The reliable "money cheat" is the legitimate one: the gold loop produces deterministic income once built. See the Gold Production guide for the numbers.