Obsidian Plugin Template - JEBS Stack

Warning

This is WIP and will break, crash, fail, or otherwise not work. Once it's ready for public consumption, this page will update. Until then, feel free to browse.

Backstory

TL;DR

A highly opinionated template for building Obsidian plugins, incorporating TypeScript, Bun, Jest, ESBuild, Husky, and DotEnv.

What?

This template evolved from several other development stacks, in an attempt (more of an experiment, really) to see if a completely wrapped repo could be created that provided:

• A code framework using:
  • TypeScript for type checking and documentation
  • The JEBS toolchain
  • Husky configured to easily manage Github Actions
  • DotEnv configured to handle environment interaction
• A configured vscode workspace
• A configured (and loaded) codespace

Why?

I'm tired of hunting down a repo to work with, only to spend hours after cloning hunting down dependencies that were probably environmental for the source developer, but not to me. Try to build, get an error, hunt down the reason, install another package. Lather, rinse, and repeat. I don't mean to throw shade on FOSS developers. I think many of us have gotten used to our system configurations that we take some things for granted.

At any rate, I wanted to create some obsidian plugins. I knew I was going to be working on more than one, so I wanted a repeatable template that spun up everything (the list above). And, I wanted to share it, so other's could easily get going.

Challenge accepted.

JEBS toolchain?

The JEBS toolchain is an attempt to leverage faster tools (e.g. bun over npm) that produce the tightest, lightest JavaScript output, while also making setup, testing and publishing as frictionless as possible. It's also an opportunity for me to familiarize myself with some of these (new to me) tools:

• Testing: Jest
• Bundling: ESBuild
• Management: Bun
• UI: Svelte

Plugin Template Boilerplate

What follows is taken from the plugin template provided by Obsidian

This sample plugin demonstrates some of the basic functionality the plugin API can do.

• Adds a ribbon icon, which shows a Notice when clicked.
• Adds a command "Open Sample Modal" which opens a Modal.
• Adds a plugin setting tab to the settings page.
• Registers a global click event and output 'click' to the console.
• Registers a global interval which logs 'setInterval' to the console.

First time developing plugins?

Quick starting guide for new plugin devs:

• Check if someone already developed a plugin for what you want! There might be an existing plugin similar enough that you can partner up with.
• Make a copy of this repo as a template with the "Use this template" button (login to GitHub if you don't see it).
• Clone your repo to a local development folder. For convenience, you can place this folder in your .obsidian/plugins/your-plugin-name folder.
• Install NodeJS, then run npm i in the command line under your repo folder.
• Run npm run dev to compile your plugin from main.ts to main.js.
• Make changes to main.ts (or create new .ts files). Those changes should be automatically compiled into main.js.
• Reload Obsidian to load the new version of your plugin.
• Enable plugin in settings window.
• For updates to the Obsidian API run npm update in the command line under your repo folder.

Releasing new releases

• Update your manifest.json with your new version number, such as 1.0.1, and the minimum Obsidian version required for your latest release.
• Update your versions.json file with "new-plugin-version": "minimum-obsidian-version" so older versions of Obsidian can download an older version of your plugin that's compatible.
• Create new GitHub release using your new version number as the "Tag version". Use the exact version number, don't include a prefix v. See here for an example
• Upload the files manifest.json, main.js, styles.css as binary attachments. Note: The manifest.json file must be in two places, first the root path of your repository and also in the release.
• Publish the release.

You can simplify the version bump process by running npm version patch, npm version minor or npm version major after updating minAppVersion manually in manifest.json. The command will bump version in manifest.json and package.json, and add the entry for the new version to versions.json

Adding your plugin to the community plugin list

• Check the plugin guidelines.
• Publish an initial version.
• Make sure you have a README.md file in the root of your repo.
• Make a pull request to add your plugin.

How to use

• Clone this repo.
• Make sure your NodeJS is at least v16 (node --version).
• npm i or yarn to install dependencies.
• npm run dev to start compilation in watch mode.

Manually installing the plugin

• Copy over main.js, styles.css, manifest.json to your vault VaultFolder/.obsidian/plugins/your-plugin-id/.

Improve code quality with eslint (optional)

• ESLint is a tool that analyzes your code to quickly find problems. You can run ESLint against your plugin to find common bugs and ways to improve your code.
• To use eslint with this project, make sure to install eslint from terminal:
  • npm install -g eslint
• To use eslint to analyze this project use this command:
  • eslint main.ts
  • eslint will then create a report with suggestions for code improvement by file and line number.
• If your source code is in a folder, such as src, you can use eslint with this command to analyze all files in that folder:
  • eslint .\src\

Funding URL

You can include funding URLs where people who use your plugin can financially support it.

The simple way is to set the fundingUrl field to your link in your manifest.json file:

{
    "fundingUrl": "https://buymeacoffee.com"
}

If you have multiple URLs, you can also do:

{
    "fundingUrl": {
        "Buy Me a Coffee": "https://buymeacoffee.com",
        "GitHub Sponsor": "https://github.com/sponsors",
        "Patreon": "https://www.patreon.com/"
    }
}

References

• API Documentation