Verifying Plugin Compatibility

Please see Incompatible Changes in IntelliJ Platform and Plugins API for known breaking changes.

For API annotated with @ApiStatus.Internal, see Internal API Migration for more details and replacements.

Plugin Verifier

Compatibility with newer IDEs can easily be verified for plugins hosted on the JetBrains Marketplace using the built-in Plugin Verifier.

Integration in Gradle build is available using the runPluginVerifier task, please see Gradle IntelliJ Plugin - Plugin Verifier for details.

You can easily integrate it in Continuous Integration (CI) environments by running this task as another quality check step. Check the IntelliJ Platform Plugin Template GitHub workflow configuration file as sample.

If your plugin is hosted on GitHub and you are not using Gradle, consider using third-party GitHub Actions IntelliJ Platform Plugin Verifier or IntelliJ Plugin Verifier.

In other cases, intellij-plugin-verifier can be used standalone as well.

IDE Support

The status of an API is marked using various annotations defined in ApiStatus, please see their doc for more details. Use highlighting available via dedicated IDE inspections as noted below to prevent problems as early as possible.

Unstable API

@ApiStatus.Experimental is considered unstable and may break or be removed.
@ApiStatus.Internal must not be used by plugins, see Internal API Migration for more details and replacements.
@ApiStatus.ScheduledForRemoval denotes API that will be removed in a future version.

Inspection: JVM languages | Unstable API Usage and JVM languages | Unstable type is used in signature

Obsolete API

API annotated with @ApiStatus.Obsolete has been replaced with a better alternative and must not be used for new code.

Inspection: Plugin DevKit | Code | Usages of ApiStatus.@Obsolete (2023.1)

Non-Extendable API

API annotated with @ApiStatus.NonExtendable must not be extended, implemented or overridden.

Inspection: JVM languages | Class, interface, or method should not be extended

Override-Only API

API annotated with @ApiStatus.OverrideOnly must not be called directly by the client.

Inspection: JVM languages | Method can only be overridden

plugin.xml

Usage of Extension Points which are deprecated or annotated with @ApiStatus.Experimental or @ApiStatus.Internal is also highlighted in plugin.xml files.

Inspection: Plugin DevKit | Plugin descriptor | Plugin.xml validity

API Compatibility

A plugin might specify a compatibility range including releases where some API is not available. Under the hood, it uses an artifact containing generated data via @ApiStatus.AvailableSince, which is automatically attached to the project.

Inspection: Plugin DevKit | Code | Usage of IntelliJ API not available in older IDEs

Last modified: 22 April 2024