The packages on npm

Four packages on npmjs.com give you what a plugin needs. All four are MIT licensed.

Package	Holds	Used
`@relatude/create-plugin`	the starter: a working plugin with its build set up	once, by `npm create @relatude/plugin <folder>` (A first plugin)
`@relatude/plugin-kit`	`relatudePlugin()`, the Vite build of a plugin, and the `relatude-plugin dev` command	in `vite.config.mjs`, and by `npm run dev`
`@relatude/sdk`	`definePlugin`, `useCms`, the types of the CMS services and extension points, and the `db` client (chapter 19)	in every plugin
`@relatude/ui`	the interface's components and design tokens (The component library)	in a plugin's screens

Each package's page on npmjs.com has a short example. Their type declarations carry doc comments, which your editor shows.

They give the types and the build. A plugin installs the packages, React and React's types as dev dependencies. Your editor and tsc read their types, and the build resolves their imports. relatudePlugin() then leaves react, react-dom, @relatude/sdk and @relatude/ui out of the bundle, and in the CMS the plugin uses the interface's own copies. So they add nothing to the plugin's size, and the plugin runs on the SDK of the interface that loads it.

One version for all four. The packages are released together, under one version number: the version of the SDK they describe. Keep the three a plugin installs at one version, and upgrade them together. The starter asks for its own version of each, and sets sdk in definePlugin to match ('^1.0').

Prereleases. Until 1.0 is released, the versions are prereleases such as 1.0.0-alpha.1, published under the dist-tag alpha. Name the tag when you create a plugin and when you upgrade one:

npm create @relatude/plugin@alpha my-plugin
npm install -D @relatude/sdk@alpha @relatude/ui@alpha @relatude/plugin-kit@alpha

npm view @relatude/sdk dist-tags shows which version each tag points at.

What they need. @relatude/sdk and @relatude/ui need React 19, and @relatude/plugin-kit needs Vite 5 or newer. The starter asks for React 19, Vite 6 and TypeScript 5.

In a project of your own. The starter is the easiest start. To build a plugin in an existing project instead, install the packages:

npm install -D @relatude/sdk @relatude/ui @relatude/plugin-kit vite typescript react @types/react

Then add vite.config.mjs as in A first plugin, a tsconfig.json as in TypeScript, and these scripts to package.json:

"scripts": {
  "dev": "relatude-plugin dev",
  "build": "vite build",
  "typecheck": "tsc --noEmit"
}

The build starts from src/index.tsx; relatudePlugin({ entry: 'src/plugin.tsx' }) names another file.

Outside the CMS interface, such as on a page of the site that reads content through the db client, @relatude/sdk is an ordinary dependency, bundled like any other.