How to Publish a Plugin
In this document, you'll learn how to publish a Medusa plugin to NPM and what are some requirements to keep in mind before publishing. Afterwards, your plugin will be published on the Medusa Plugins page.
Prerequisites
If you haven't created a plugin yet, please check this guide to learn how to create a plugin.
Prepare Plugin
package.json Checklist
Before publishing your plugin, make sure you've set the following fields in your plugin's package.json:
name
: The name of your plugin. By convention, all plugin names start withmedusa
followed by a descriptive name of what the plugin does. For example,medusa-payment-stripe
.description
: A short description of what the plugin does.author
: Your name or your company's name.repository
: This includes details about the repository that holds the source code of the plugin. It's an object that holds the following properties:type
: Should begit
.url
: The URL to the repository (for example, the GitHub repository holding the code of your plugin).
keywords
: An array of keywords that are related to the plugin. It's required for all Medusa plugins to use the keywordsmedusa-plugin
. Other recommended keywords are:medusa-plugin-analytics
: For plugins that add analytics functionalities or integrations.medusa-plugin-cms
: For plugins that add CMS functionalities or integrations.medusa-plugin-notification
: For plugins that add notification functionalities or integrations.medusa-plugin-payment
: For plugins that add payment functionalities or integrations.medusa-plugin-search
: For plugins that add search functionalities or integrations.medusa-plugin-shipping
: For plugins that add shipping functionalities or integrations.medusa-plugin-storage
: For plugins that add a file service or storage integration.medusa-plugin-source
: For plugins that help migrate or import data into Medusa from another platform.medusa-plugin-storefront
: For storefronts that can be integrated with a Medusa backend.medusa-plugin-admin
: For plugins that include only admin customizations.medusa-plugin-other
: For any other type of plugin.
Scripts in package.json
- Without Admin Customizations
- With Admin Customizations
Make sure you add the publish
script to your scripts
field:
The build
script ensures that the plugin's built files are placed as explained in the plugin structure section of the Create Plugin documentation.
The prepare
script facilitates your publishing process. You would typically run this script before publishing your plugin.
First, make sure to change tsconfig
files as recommended in the create guide.
Then, add the following prepare
and build
scripts to your scripts
The build:server
script builds the resources of the backend for development and ensures they are placed as explained in the plugin structure section of the Create Plugin documentation.
The prepare
script creates a production build of both backend and admin resources.
Plugin Structure
Make sure your plugin's structure is as described in the Create Plugin documentation. If you've made the changes mentioned in the above section to the scripts in package.json
, you should have the correct structure when you run the prepare
command.
NPM Ignore File
Not all files that you use while developing your plugin are necessary to be published.
For example, the files you add in the src
directory are compiled to the root of the plugin directory before publishing. Then, when a developer installs your plugin, they’ll just be using the files in the root.
So, you can ignore files and directories like src
from the final published NPM package.
To do that, create the file .npmignore
with the following content:
Publish Plugin
This section explains how to publish your plugin to NPM.
Before you publish a plugin, you must create an account on NPM.
Step 1: Run Prepare Command
Before you publish or update your plugin, make sure to run the prepare
command defined earlier:
Step 2: Publish Plugin Package
You can publish your package with the following command:
If you haven't logged in before with your NPM account, you'll be asked to login first.
Your package is then published on NPM and everyone can use it and install it.
Install Plugin
To install your published plugin, run the following command on any Medusa backend project:
Where medusa-plugin-custom
is your plugin's package name.
Update Plugin
If you make changes to your plugin and you want to publish those changes, run the following command to change the NPM version:
Where <type>
indicates the type of version update you’re publishing. For example, it can be major
or minor
. You can see the full list of types in NPM’s documentation.
Then, publish the new update: