IntelliJ IDEA Plugin Development

IntelliJ IDEA is available in two editions: IntelliJ Community Edition and IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate. See Choose your edition and Feature Comparison for a detailed comparison.

IntelliJ IDEA Plugin Setup

Gradle Build Script

Define a dependency using intellijIdeaCommunity() or intellijIdeaUltimate(), see Versions link on top of this page for all available versions. See Local IntelliJ Platform IDE Instance for using a local installation.

Minimum build.gradle.kts setup:

repositories {
  mavenCentral()
  intellijPlatform {
    defaultRepositories()
  }
}

dependencies {
  intellijPlatform {
    intellijIdeaCommunity("<versionNumber>")
  }
}

The configuration of IntelliJ IDEA plugin projects follows the methods described in Configuring Plugin Projects using the IntelliJ IDEA Product Attribute.

`gradle-intellij-plugin` Attribute	Attribute Value
`intellij.type`	`IC` for IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition (default) `IU` for IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate
`intellij.version`	IDE version, e.g. `2022.2`

gradle-intellij-plugin Attribute

Attribute Value

intellij.type

IC for IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition (default)

IU for IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate

intellij.version

IDE version, e.g. 2022.2

Available API

See IntelliJ Community Plugins Extension Point and Listener List for API from bundled plugins.

IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate provides information specific to this edition.

Java Plugin

Configure bundled Java plugin dependency with plugin ID com.intellij.java.

PSI Cookbook lists a number of common operations for working with Java PSI.

Depending on the exact functionality, a plugin can also target UAST – Unified Abstract Syntax Tree to support multiple JVM languages, including Java and Kotlin.

Java Test Framework

To use existing test base classes, add TestFrameworkType.Plugin.Java test-framework available from Plugin Test Frameworks.

Alternatively, specify com.jetbrains.intellij.java:java-test-framework:$VERSION$ as testImplementation dependency explicitly (see IntelliJ Platform Artifacts Repositories).

Kotlin Plugin

Configure bundled Kotlin plugin dependency with plugin ID org.jetbrains.kotlin.

See also UAST on how to support multiple JVM languages, including Kotlin.

10 May 2025