silverbullet/website/Plugs/Development.md

Warning

Unstable APIs The plug APIs are still unstable and tend to change. You’re welcome to experiment and build stuff, but do take into account that things tend to change. Also note that all this is horrifically under documented.

The easiest way to get started is to click the “Use this template” on the silverbullet-plug-template repo.

Generally, every plug consists of a YAML manifest file named yourplugname.plug.yaml. This file defines all functions that form your plug. To be loadable by SilverBullet (or any PlugOS-based system for that matter), it needs to be compiled into a bundle (ending with .plug.js).

Generally, the way to do this is to run silverbullet plug:compile as follows:

silverbullet plug:compile yourplugname.plug.yaml

During development, you may want to compile plugs in debug mode, which will not minify them and generate source maps:

silverbullet plug:compile --debug yourplugname.plug.yaml

If you use the plug template, this command is wrapped in your deno.jsonc file, so you can just run either:

deno task build

to build it once, or

deno task watch

to build it and rebuild it when files are changed. This will write a yourplugname.plug.js file into the same folder.

For development it’s easiest to simply copy the .plug.js file into your space’s _plug/ folder:

cp myplug.plug.js ~/myspace/_plug/

Within seconds (watch your browser’s JavaScript console), your plug should be picked up both on the server and, synced to your browser and loaded. No need to even reload the page.

Debugging

Since plugs run in your browser, you can use the usual browser debugging tools. When you console.log things, these logs will appear in your browser’s JavaScript console.

Distribution

Once you’re happy with your plug, you can distribute it in various ways:

• You can put it on github by simply committing the resulting .plug.js file there and instructing users to point to by adding - github:yourgithubuser/yourrepo/yourplugname.plug.js to their PLUGS file
• Add a release in your github repo and instruct users to add the release as - ghr:yourgithubuser/yourrepo or if they need a specific release - ghr:yourgithubuser/yourrepo/release-name
• You can put it on any other web server, and tell people to load it via https, e.g., - https://mydomain.com/mypugname.plug.js.