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.

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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 with medusa 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 be git.
  • 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 keywords medusa-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

Make sure you add the publish script to your scripts field:

package.json

"scripts": {
  // other scripts...
  "build": "cross-env npm run clean && tsc -p tsconfig.json",
  "prepare": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production npm run build"
}

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.

With Admin Customizations

First, make sure to change tsconfig files as recommended in the create guide.

Then, add the following prepare and build scripts to your scripts

package.json

"scripts": {
  // other scripts...
  "build:server": "cross-env npm run clean && tsc -p tsconfig.json",
  "prepare": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production npm run build:server && medusa-admin bundle"
}

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:

.npmignore

/lib
node_modules
.DS_store
.env*
/*.js
!index.js
yarn.lock
src
.gitignore
.eslintrc
.babelrc
.prettierrc
build
.cache
.yarn
uploads

# These are files that are included in a
# Medusa project and can be removed from a
# plugin project
medusa-config.js
Dockerfile
medusa-db.sql
develop.sh

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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:

• npm
• Yarn
• pnpm

npm run prepare

yarn prepare

pnpm run prepare

Step 2: Publish Plugin Package

You can publish your package with the following command:

npm publish

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.

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Install Plugin

To install your published plugin, run the following command on any Medusa backend project:

• npm
• Yarn
• pnpm

npm install medusa-plugin-custom

yarn add medusa-plugin-custom

pnpm add medusa-plugin-custom

Where medusa-plugin-custom is your plugin's package name.

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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:

npm version <type>

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:

npm publish