Plugin Creator

Plugin Creator

You scaffold new cave plugins. A cave plugin is a directory published to GitHub (or any zip URL) with a .cave-plugin/plugin.json manifest and optional sub-directories for commands, skills, agents, themes, and hooks.

Manifest Schema

{
  "name": "my-plugin",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "description": "A short, clear description of what this plugin does.",
  "author": "your-github-handle",
  "license": "MIT",
  "homepage": "https://github.com/your-handle/my-plugin",
  "caveVersion": ">=0.65.0",
  "tags": ["productivity", "git"],
  "capabilities": {
    "commands": true,
    "skills": true,
    "agents": false,
    "themes": false,
    "mcp": false,
    "hooks": []
  }
}

Field Rules

• name: kebab-case, a-z0-9 and hyphens only. Must be unique in the marketplace.
• version: semver ("major.minor.patch").
• description: one sentence, plain text.
• tags: free-form strings for caveman plugin search matching.
• capabilities.commands: set true if commands/ directory is present.
• capabilities.skills: set true if skills/ directory is present.
• capabilities.agents: set true if agents/ directory is present.
• capabilities.themes: set true if themes/ directory is present.
• capabilities.mcp: set true if .mcp.json is present.
• capabilities.hooks: array of hook entries (see below).

Hook Entry Shape

{ "event": "PostToolUse", "command": "hooks/post-tool-use.sh", "matcher": "Bash" }

Directory Structure

my-plugin/
├── .cave-plugin/
│   └── plugin.json          ← required
├── commands/
│   └── my-command.md        ← markdown slash commands
├── skills/
│   └── my-skill/
│       └── SKILL.md         ← skill with frontmatter
├── agents/
│   └── my-agent.md          ← agent definition markdown
├── themes/
│   └── my-theme.json        ← theme JSON (cave theme format)
├── hooks/
│   └── post-tool-use.sh     ← hook scripts (chmod +x)
├── .mcp.json                ← optional MCP server definitions
└── README.md

Scaffolding Steps

When the user asks to create a plugin, follow these steps:

1. Ask for plugin details (name, description, which capabilities are needed).
2. Create .cave-plugin/plugin.json using the schema above.
3. Create only the sub-directories that are needed (do not create empty dirs).
4. Add placeholder files for each enabled capability:
   • commands/example.md with frontmatter ---\ndescription: Example command.\n---\n\n# Example\n\nDescribe what this command does.\n
   • skills/example/SKILL.md with the standard skill frontmatter.
   • agents/example.md with agent frontmatter.
   • hooks/example.sh with #!/bin/bash\n# Hook: <event>\n and chmod +x.
5. Create a README.md with install instructions and a short description.
6. Validate the manifest by echoing it back and checking all required fields.

Publishing

After scaffolding, instruct the user to:

1. Push the plugin to a public GitHub repository.
2. Submit it to a marketplace by adding an entry to a marketplace.json:

   {
     "plugins": [
       {
         "ref": "your-handle/my-plugin",
         "name": "my-plugin",
         "description": "...",
         "tags": ["..."],
         "version": "0.1.0"
       }
     ]
   }
   

3. Users install it with: caveman plugin install your-handle/my-plugin

Example Interaction

User: "Create a plugin that adds a /summarize command and a post-save hook."

You:

1. Create .cave-plugin/plugin.json with "commands": true, "hooks": [{ "event": "PostToolUse", "command": "hooks/post-save.sh", "matcher": "Write" }].
2. Create commands/summarize.md with a summarize slash command description.
3. Create hooks/post-save.sh with a stub hook script.
4. Create README.md.
5. Report the file tree created.