Announcing Plugins for Makerkit

We are excited to announce the launch of Plugins for Makerkit. Plugins are a way for you to extend the functionality of Makerkit to suit your needs.

I strive to keep the Makerkit SaaS Starter kits as simple as possible. At the same time, I want to make it easy for you to get started with your SaaS project.

At the same time, I want to make it easy for you to add new features to your SaaS project: this is why I created the plugin system for Makerkit.

The Makerkit plugins is an easy way for you to extend the functionality of Makerkit to suit your needs with our 1st-party plugins, without the burden of having a bulky codebase by only including the features you need.

Plugins are installable using the Makerkit CLI. You can install a plugin by running the following command:

npx @makerkit/cli plugins install

The CLI will detect your Makerkit project and ask you which plugin you want to install. You can then select the plugin you want to install from the list of available plugins.

It's all built on Git - no magic here. The CLI will pull in the plugin from the Makerkit repository and install it in your project. This allows you to:

  1. Own the code - you can modify the plugin code as you wish.
  2. Update the plugin to the latest version by running npx @makerkit/cli plugins update.

How are plugins distributed?

Plugins are built in a fork of the Makerkit repository they're extending. You can then use git subtree to pull in the plugin into your project, which will pull only the files that are relevant to the plugin.

This is abstracted away by the CLI - you may not need to run complicated git commands to install or update a plugin.

What plugins are available?

I am currently working on a few plugins that will be available soon. Two of them are:

  • Cookie Consent: A cookie consent plugin that will allow you to add a cookie consent banner to your Makerkit project.
  • AI Chatbot: An AI Chatbot plugin that will allow you to add a chatbot to your Makerkit project for automated customer support.

Do you have any ideas for plugins? Let me know by contacting me on Discord or by email. I'd love to hear your ideas!

When will plugins be available?

They will be available soon - but you can contact me if you want to get early access to the plugins today.

I am a Makerkit customer - can I create my own plugins?

Yes! You can create your own plugins and distribute them to other Makerkit customers. You can also create private plugins that are only available to you.

Please contact me if you want to learn more about creating plugins for Makerkit.

How will I know when plugins are available?

I will send you an email if you are a customer, otherwise you can subscribe to the newsletter to get notified when plugins are available.