IdeaSDK/docs/manifest.md

Manifest

Every plugin package has an idea-plugin.json file at the archive root.

{
  "ideaPluginManifestVersion": 1,
  "id": "com.example.hello-plugin",
  "displayName": "Hello Plugin",
  "publisher": "Example",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "description": "Example IdeA plugin.",
  "main": "dist/index.js",
  "engines": {
    "idea": ">=0.1.0"
  },
  "trustLevel": "full",
  "capabilities": ["ui", "tooling"],
  "activationScope": "app",
  "contributes": {
    "menus": [],
    "menuItems": [],
    "layouts": [],
    "mcpServers": []
  }
}

Required Fields

• ideaPluginManifestVersion: currently 1.
• id: stable lowercase id using letters, digits, dots and dashes. It must start and end with an alphanumeric character.
• displayName: human-readable plugin name.
• version: semver version.
• main: package-relative ESM entrypoint loaded by IdeA.
• trustLevel: currently "full".

Optional Fields

• description, publisher.
• engines.idea: host compatibility hint.
• activationScope: "app" by default, or "project" when activation needs a focused project immediately.
• capabilities: "ui", "tooling" and/or "mcp".

Contributions

contributes.layouts is the only surface for plugin layouts. The same layout contribution can be mounted inside an IdeA layout cell or opened in a detached OS window. Do not add a separate manifest contribution type for windows.

Contribution ids are part of the runtime contract:

• commands can only register ids declared by contributes.menuItems[*].command;
• layouts can only register type values declared by contributes.layouts;
• services.windows.open({ layoutType }) only accepts a layout type declared by the calling plugin.

Validation

Use the SDK validator in tests or build tooling:

import { assertPluginManifest } from "@idea/plugin-sdk";

assertPluginManifest(JSON.parse(manifestText));