Publishing Plugins

Plugins are packaged as .tar.gz archives. Distribute them directly, host your own catalog, or publish through the official kite-plugins repository.

Version Rules

• Use a semantic version without a v prefix, such as 0.1.3.
• Package contents for the same ID and version are immutable. Kite stores assets by their SHA-256 digest. Any content change, even a single string, requires a version increment; otherwise, Kite rejects the installation.
• engines.kite specifies the Kite versions the plugin supports. Only stable releases (X.Y.Z or vX.Y.Z) enforce this range during installation and when displaying the catalog. Development, prerelease, and other non-release builds skip Kite version matching. All builds still check SDK compatibility.

README

The plugin's root README.md is copied into dist/ and included in the archive. When distributed through a catalog, Kite can preview this README. Use full repository URLs for links to files that are not included in the package.

Private Distribution

Direct Installation

Upload the .tar.gz archive through Plugin management → Install from file. This works for internal use and small groups. The archive limit is 50 MiB.

Host a Static Catalog

Generate static files for a plugin catalog:

pnpm run catalog --base-url https://plugins.example.com/

Output:

dist/catalog/
├── catalog.json          # Catalog index: metadata, versions, download URLs, SHA-256
├── packages/             # Plugin archives
└── readmes/              # README preview files

Upload dist/catalog/ to any HTTP(S) static host, then enter the catalog.json URL under Settings → General → Plugin catalog in Kite. To host archives separately from the catalog:

pnpm run catalog \
  --base-url https://plugins.example.com/ \
  --package-base-url https://downloads.example.com/plugins/

Upload packages/ first, then publish catalog.json and readmes/.

Publish to the Official Catalog

Submit a completed plugin to kite-org/kite-plugins. Once reviewed and merged, it can be published to the official catalog.

1. Fork and clone the repository.
2. Place the plugin source in plugins/<plugin ID>/, with the directory name matching name in package.json. Include a README.md describing the plugin's features and usage. Do not commit dist/ or installation archives.
3. Run pnpm install at the repository root, then submit a PR with the plugin source and updated pnpm-lock.yaml.

After the PR is merged into main, the publishing workflow builds unpublished plugin versions and updates these catalogs:

Catalog	URL
GitHub Pages	https://kite-org.github.io/kite-plugins/catalog.json
EdgeOne	https://plugins.kitehq.dev/catalog.json (Kite's default catalog)