pluginpack-build-and-verify

name	pluginpack-build-and-verify
description	Use when working in a repo that uses pluginpack (it has a pluginpack.config.ts) and you need to build the native plugin outputs, validate them, prune stale files, or check whether a generated plugin repo has drifted — i.e. driving the pluginpack CLI and interpreting its exit codes.

Building and verifying with pluginpack

pluginpack is a deterministic build tool. Every command is scriptable and exits non-zero on failure.

Build

pluginpack build                      # all configured targets
pluginpack build --target cursor      # one target
pluginpack build --target claude --dry-run   # print planned managed files, write nothing

Exit 0 on success; 1 on config/source/output failure. The build errors if two targets resolve to the same output path (give them distinct outDirs).

Validate

pluginpack validate --target cursor --dir ../cursor-plugins

Checks an output directory against that target's native manifest/path/frontmatter rules. Exit 0 = passes, 1 = errors. (For Claude, claude plugin validate is the authoritative check; pluginpack's conformance tests use it when available.)

Diff (CI staleness gate)

pluginpack diff --target cursor --against ../cursor-plugins

Builds to a temp dir and compares managed files against an existing target repo. Exit 1 when the repo is stale — wire this into CI to fail or to open a PR against the generated repo. Use ignoredDiffPaths in the target config for paths the generated repo intentionally owns.

Prune / clean

pluginpack prune --dry-run    # show stale managed files
pluginpack prune              # remove them
pluginpack clean --target cursor   # remove all managed files for a target

These only touch files recorded in .pluginpack/<target>.json. A guard refuses to delete anything inside your declared source (source.skills/source.plugins) or the config; pass --force to override (rarely needed — usually it means an outDir overlaps your source).

Developing pluginpack itself

Run the full gate before considering work done: npm run check (format, lint, typecheck, test, build, docs). Regenerate the README CLI reference with node dist/cli.js docs after changing commands.