How to Build Your First IntelliJ IDEA Plugin: Step‑by‑Step Guide

When writing Java code you often encounter repetitive tasks and wish for a plugin to automate them. This guide shows how to develop an IntelliJ IDEA plugin from scratch.

Development Environment

The required dependencies are:

IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition

IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition source code

Plugin DevKit

IntelliJ Platform SDK

Install IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition

If you already have the Ultimate edition, you still need the Community edition because the commercial version is closed‑source and you cannot debug core code.

Download the Community Edition source

Clone the source repository:

git clone --depth 1 https://git.jetbrains.org/idea/community.git idea

Refer to the official “Check Out And Build Community Edition” guide for building.

Add IDEA JDK

Create an IDEA JDK to run the plugin. On macOS you may need to add /lib/tools.jar to the classpath manually.

Configure IntelliJ Platform SDK

Open File | Project Structure, create a new IntelliJ Platform SDK and set its JDK to the IDEA JDK you just created.

Then add the downloaded IDEA source directory to the SDK so you can debug IDEA’s own code.

First Plugin

Create a simple plugin to learn the complete workflow.

Create a New Project

Select IntelliJ Platform Plugin and set the Project SDK to the plugin SDK you created.

The project contains src and resources directories. The src holds Java code, while resources/META-INF/plugin.xml describes the plugin.

plugin.xml

<idea-plugin>
  <id>com.your.company.unique.plugin.id</id>
  <name>Plugin display name here</name>
  <version>1.0</version>
  <vendor email="[email protected]" url="http://www.yourcompany.com">YourCompany</vendor>
  <description><![CDATA[Enter short description for your plugin here.]]></description>
  <idea-version since-build="145.0"/>
  <depends>com.intellij.modules.lang</depends>
  <extensions defaultExtensionNs="com.intellij">
    <!-- Add extensions here -->
  </extensions>
  <actions>
    <!-- Add actions here -->
  </actions>
</idea-plugin>

Create a New Action

Define a class extending AnAction and implement actionPerformed:

public class TextBoxes extends AnAction {
    public TextBoxes() {
        super("Text _Boxes");
    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(AnActionEvent event) {
        Project project = event.getData(PlatformDataKeys.PROJECT);
        String txt = Messages.showInputDialog(project,
                "What is your name?",
                "Input your name",
                Messages.getQuestionIcon());
        Messages.showMessageDialog(project,
                "Hello, " + txt + "!\
 I am glad to see you.",
                "Information",
                Messages.getInformationIcon());
    }
}

Register the action in plugin.xml:

<actions>
  <group id="MyPlugin.SampleMenu" text="_Sample Menu" description="Sample menu">
    <add-to-group group-id="MainMenu" anchor="last"/>
    <action id="Myplugin.Textboxes"
            class="Mypackage.TextBoxes"
            text="Text _Boxes"
            description="A test menu item"/>
  </group>
</actions>

After building, run the plugin like any Java application; a new IDEA instance launches with the plugin enabled. Selecting “Text Boxes” shows the input dialog.