The manifest.json file (v4)

The manifest is where you include metadata about your plugin. Simply put, the manifest is a list of facts about your plugin in the form of a JSON object. No executable code goes into your manifest.

The manifest is located in your plugin's root folder and must be named manifest.json.

Note

There are two versions of the manifest that you can use. Version 3 is described here. Note that while version 3 is still acceptable for now, it will be deprecated in the future.

Example manifest

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{
  "manifestVersion": 4,
  "id": "YOUR_ID_HERE",
  "name": "Name of Your Plugin",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "main": "main.js",
  "host": {
    "app": "XD",
    "minVersion": "36.0.0"
  },
  "entrypoints": [
    {
      "type": "command",
      "id": "commandFn",
      "label": { "default": "Show A Dialog" }
    },
    {
      "type": "panel",
      "id": "panelName",
      "label": { "default": "Panel Name" }
    }
  ],
  "icons": [
    { "width": 48, "height": 48, "path": "icons/plugin.png", 
      "scale": [ 1, 2 ], "theme": [ "all" ], "species": [ "pluginList" ] }
  ]
}
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{
  "manifestVersion": 4,
  "id": "YOUR_ID_HERE",
  "name": "Name of Your Plugin",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "main": "main.js",
  "host": {
    "app": "XD",
    "minVersion": "36.0.0"
  },
  "entrypoints": [
    {
      "type": "command",
      "id": "commandFn",
      "label": { "default": "Show A Dialog" }
    },
    {
      "type": "panel",
      "id": "panelName",
      "label": { "default": "Panel Name" }
    }
  ],
  "icons": [
    { "width": 48, "height": 48, "path": "icons/plugin.png", 
      "scale": [ 1, 2 ], "theme": [ "all" ], "species": [ "pluginList" ] }
  ]
}

See the sections below to learn more about each key/value field. All fields are required unless otherwise noted below.

Top-level metadata

The top level of the manifest JSON object contains high-level information about your plugin.

Info

Here are the definitions of the keywords in the "Required" column:

• Develop - required field for XD to run the plugin. If excluded, XD won't load the plugin
• Publish - required field for plugins to be submitted in the Developer Distribution portal and published in the Plugin Manager

Icons

Icons are not required during development, but must be provided when distributing through the Plugin Marketplace. The icons field is an array of a IconDefinitions.

IconDefinition

Hosts

The host field is an object matching the HostDefinition format specified below. This entry allows your plugin to specify which app your plugin can run on such as Adobe XD or Photoshop. During development, the field can contain an array of HostDefinition's. This can be very convient during development of cross-compatible UXP plugins. However, during submission to the marketplace, only one HostDefinition is allowed.

HostDefinition

Entry Points

The entryPoints field is an array of objects matching the EntryPointDefinition format specified below. These entries appear both in the Plugins menu in the native menubar, and the "plugin launchpad" sidebar panel. See Plugin menu structure for details on how these entries are displayed.

Each entry point specifies a type, to create either a direct-action command or a panel show/hide command.

EntryPointDefinition

Keyboard shortcuts

Example: "shortcut": { "mac": "Cmd+Shift+P", "win": "Ctrl+Shift+P" }

Keyboard shortcuts are defined separately for each platform. Each definition is a string that follows this syntax:

• One or more modifier keys, in any order, each one followed by "+"

  • Mac: modifiers may be Cmd, Ctrl, Opt / Alt, or Shift. Shortcut must contain at least one of Cmd or Ctrl.
  • Win: modifiers may be Ctrl, Alt, or Shift. Shortcut must contain Ctrl.

• A letter or number key.

  • Letters are case-insensitive (e.g. "Cmd+P" and "Cmd+p" mean the same thing and neither requires pressing Shift).
  • Other keys (including punctuation, arrow keys, or F1-F12) are currently not supported.

Info If your shortcut collides with a built-in XD command or another plugin's shortcut, your shortcut will be ignored and you'll see a warning printed to the developer console.

Menu Localization

Plugin menu item labels or panel labels can be localized to match XD's current UI language setting. Other manifest fields such as name cannot be localized yet.

Localized labels are represented as an object containing multiple translations, instead of a single string value:

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"label": {
    "default": "Menu Label",
    "fr": "Etiquette de Menu",
    "de": "Menübezeichnung"
}
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"label": {
    "default": "Menu Label",
    "fr": "Etiquette de Menu",
    "de": "Menübezeichnung"
}

A default string is always required. The language must be a two-letter code from ISO 639-1, not a hyphenated code such as en-US. To avoid inconsistency with the rest of XD's built-in menu items, languages that aren't supported by XD are ignored.

Info You can also localize strings that appear in your plugin's own dialog UI, by choosing which strings to use in your UI based on the value of application.appLanguage.

Last updated 2/23/2023

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