IdeaSDK/docs/packaging-distribution.md

Packaging And Distribution

A plugin archive is a ZIP file whose root contains idea-plugin.json.

hello-plugin-0.1.0.zip
├── idea-plugin.json
├── README.md
└── dist/
    ├── index.js
    ├── constants.js
    └── core/
        ├── layout.js
        ├── storage.js
        └── workspace.js

The manifest main field must point to an emitted file inside the archive:

{
  "main": "dist/index.js"
}

Module Resolution

IdeA loads main as ESM and serves package-relative imports from the plugin package. This is supported:

import { Dashboard } from "./core/layout.js";

For React, import bare host modules normally:

import { useState } from "react";
import { jsx } from "react/jsx-runtime";

IdeA resolves React/ReactDOM bare imports to the host instance. Other bare dependencies are not host-resolved. Bundle or vendor third-party dependencies other than React/ReactDOM into package-relative files.

TypeScript Build

The hello plugin uses plain tsc:

npm run build
npm run build:hello-plugin

For React layouts, configure JSX:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "jsx": "react-jsx",
    "module": "NodeNext",
    "moduleResolution": "NodeNext"
  }
}

Archive Build

The SDK example can be packaged with:

npm run package:hello-plugin

The resulting archive has no wrapping parent directory and is ready for IdeA's plugin installer.