Publishing Plugins

This guide covers practical steps for shipping your FeatherPanel plugin.

Decide Your Distribution Model

FeatherPanel supports different plugin ecosystems:

• Private/internal plugins for your own panel environments
• Community plugins shared publicly
• Commercial/paid plugins

You can explore existing projects for inspiration at:

https://github.com/featherpanel-com

Pre-Publish Checklist

Before releasing:

• Confirm core features work on a clean test panel
• Verify permissions are minimal and intentional
• Remove temporary debug/test code
• Ensure user-facing labels and messages are clear
• Test install and update paths

Versioning Recommendations

• Use semantic versioning (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH)
• Increase PATCH for fixes
• Increase MINOR for backward-compatible features
• Increase MAJOR for breaking changes

Clear versioning helps users trust updates and reduces support issues.

Release Notes

Each release should document:

• What changed
• Why it changed
• Any migration or setup steps required
• Any new permission requirements

Update Compatibility

Because plugins run in isolated/containerized space, compatibility across panel updates is generally stable when you rely on documented APIs and hooks.

Still, test each release against the panel version you target before broad rollout.