Skip to main content
Version: v1.8.x

Setting up your development environment

Before you follow the development tutorials for creating a Zoweâ„¢ CLI plug-in, follow these steps to set up your environment.

Prequisites#

Install Zowe CLI.

Initial setup#

To create your development space, you will clone and build zowe-cli-sample-plugin from source.

Before you clone the repository, create a local development folder named zowe-tutorial. You will clone and build all projects in this folder.

Branches#

There are two branches in the repository that correspond to different Zowe CLI versions. You can develop two branches of your plug-in so that users can install your plug-in into either @latest or @lts-incremental CLI. Developing for both versions will let you take advantage of new core features quickly and expose your plug-in to a wider range of users.

The lts-incremental branch of Sample Plug-in is compatible with the @lts-incremental version of core CLI (Zowe Stable release). The master branch of Sample Plug-in is compatible with @latest version of core CLI (Zowe Active Development release).

For more information about the versioning scheme, see Maintaner Versioning in the Zowe CLI repository.

Clone zowe-cli-sample-plugin and build from source#

Clone the repository into your development folder to match the following structure:

zowe-tutorial
└── zowe-cli-sample-plugin

Follow these steps:

  1. cd to your zowe-tutorial folder.
  2. git clone https://github.com/zowe/zowe-cli-sample-plugin
  3. cd to your zowe-cli-sample-plugin folder.
  4. git checkout lts-incremental
  5. npm install
  6. npm run build

(Optional) Run the automated tests#

We recommend running automated tests on all code changes. Follow these steps:

  1. cd to the __tests__/__resources__/properties folder.
  2. Copy example_properties.yaml to custom_properties.yaml.
  3. Edit the properties within custom_properties.yaml to contain valid system information for your site.
  4. cd to your zowe-cli-sample-plugin folder
  5. npm run test

Next steps#

After you complete your setup, follow the Installing the sample plug-in tutorial to install this sample plug-in to Zowe CLI.