Latest News for Plugin Developers - Q3 2026

Welcome to your quarterly update on plugin development, featuring exciting news and useful tools from JetBrains.

JetBrains Plugin Developer Conference 2026

Mark your calendars! On November 10, 2026, we will host our annual online event dedicated to JetBrains plugin developers. This free virtual conference will feature insights from industry leaders, including representatives from SAP and Broadcom, alongside JetBrains experts and independent developers.

What to Expect

AI Innovations: Discover how AI integrations like ACP and MCP can enhance your plugin development, alongside a discussion on their limitations.
Platform Updates: Stay informed about the latest updates to the IntelliJ Platform, such as Gradle Plugin, Plugin DevKit, and Plugin Verifier.
Real-World Development: Learn about various techniques including LSP, WSL, and scalable plugin architectures.

Enhancements in the Marketplace

Streamlined Plugin Description Edits

Updating your plugin's description is now more straightforward! You can edit the description directly from the plugin’s page without needing to upload a new version.

Access to UI Freeze Reports

Facing unexplained IDE freezes? The JetBrains Marketplace now provides UI freeze reports to help diagnose issues. Full thread dumps and CPU snapshots are included. Jakub Chrzanowski has published a guide on how to interpret these reports, and additional resources are available in the Marketplace documentation.

Development Tools Updates

IntelliJ Plugin Verifier 1.411

This tool checks for binary compatibility between IntelliJ-based IDE versions and plugins, featuring several enhancements:

Support for content modules in dependency resolution and checks.
New public APIs for validation, rebuilding dependencies, and managing verification results.
Improved memory usage during reports generation.
Reports are now created in UTF-8 format.

IntelliJ Platform Gradle Plugin 2.19.0

This plugin helps set up your environment for building and publishing Intelij-based plugins. Key updates include:

New tasks for packaging Linux, macOS, and Windows plugins.
Enhanced test framework options.
Full offline support and updates to dependency management.

Tip of the Quarter

Consider utilizing release channels for your plugins. By deploying them to non-default channels like alpha or beta, you can gather valuable user feedback before a public launch.

Learning and Resources

IDE Plugin Generator Revamp

The IDE Plugin Generator has been updated to provide a seamless experience, combining the IDE wizard and GitHub template. Users can now select dependencies and access GitHub workflows effortlessly.

Improving WSL Support

JetBrains IDEs have enhanced support for WSL projects, achieving a speed increase of up to 38%. Discover how the changes affect your plugins across different platforms like WSL, Docker, and Dev Containers.

The Continued Relevance of IDEs

While agents may code for us, the oversight provided by IDEs is still crucial. Explore the evolving role of IDEs in agent-assisted development.

Community Spotlight

Shifting from JNA to FFM

The IntelliJ Platform is updating its native integration methods from JNA to the Java Foreign Function and Memory API. Check out Patrick Scheibe’s video on transitioning your code.

Smart State Management

If your plugin needs to retain settings after a restart, Róbert Novotný demonstrates how to achieve this in just three lines of Kotlin code. Watch his brief tutorial to learn more!

Happy developing until next time from the JetBrains Marketplace team!