create-erxes-plugin

Scaffold a standalone erxes plugin repository: an API that registers itself with the erxes gateway and a React Module Federation remote that core-ui loads.

Install

The CLI ships as a standalone binary — no Node.js is needed to run it (the generated plugin itself still needs Node.js/pnpm for development).

macOS / Linux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/erxes/create-erxes-plugin/main/install.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/erxes/create-erxes-plugin/main/install.ps1 | iex

Pin a release or choose the install directory:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/erxes/create-erxes-plugin/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --version 0.2.0 --dir ~/bin

--version/CREATE_ERXES_PLUGIN_VERSION and --dir/CREATE_ERXES_PLUGIN_INSTALL_DIR are equivalent. The installer picks /usr/local/bin when writable, otherwise ~/.local/bin; on Windows it uses %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\create-erxes-plugin and adds it to the user PATH. Release assets are create-erxes-plugin-<os>-<arch>.tar.gz (-musl suffixed for Alpine and friends) and create-erxes-plugin-windows-x64.zip, verified against the release's SHA256SUMS. create-erxes-plugin --version prints the version.

Or via a package manager (requires Node.js ≥ 22.12):

npm create @erxes/plugin@latest inventory
# or
pnpm create @erxes/plugin inventory
yarn create @erxes/plugin inventory
bun create @erxes/plugin inventory
npx @erxes/create-plugin inventory

The npm package is @erxes/create-plugin; the command it installs is create-erxes-plugin.

The CLI asks for anything not passed as a flag:

Flag	Default
[directory]	plugin name
-n, --name <name>	directory name
-t, --title <title>	name in Title Case
-d, --description <text>	<title> plugin for erxes
-b, --backend <backend>	platform (erxes-api-shared startPlugin, Node.js) or a standalone framework: express, fastify, hono, elysia (Bun only), nestjs; asked interactively
--pm <npm|pnpm|yarn|bun>	the package manager running the CLI
--api-port <port>	3399
--ui-port <port>	3099
--no-install, --no-git	install and git init run
-y, --yes	accept defaults

Plugin names are lowercase words separated by single dashes (inventory, erxes-agent-v2). Printed next steps target a POSIX shell on macOS/Linux and PowerShell on Windows; the directory command quotes the target path literally for that shell.

What it generates

erxes.json        plugin identity and ports, read by api/ and ui/
api/              platform stack: erxes-api-shared startPlugin + tenant Mongoose models (Node.js)
                  standalone stacks: Express, Fastify, Hono or Elysia (Bun) subgraph APIs,
                  or NestJS code-first federation (Node.js)
ui/               React 18 Rspack Module Federation remote, prefixed Tailwind CSS —
                  overview and plugin-owned nested settings with AppLayout
                  GraphQL types generated from the printed API schema (graphql-codegen)
Dockerfile        API-only image for the chosen package manager
README.md, AGENTS.md, docs/erxes-integration.md

The generated plugin registers with erxes exactly like erxes-api-shared joinErxesGateway — from api/src/gateway.ts for every standalone framework, via startPlugin for platform — and follows the core-ui remote contract. See templates/base/docs/erxes-integration.md.

erxes's shared libraries come from npm: the UI depends on @erxes/ui and @erxes/ui-modules, the platform API on @erxes/api-shared, each installed under the name erxes code imports (erxes-ui, ui-modules, erxes-api-shared). Any of the four package managers can install them. The platform stack requires Yarn 4+ (CI uses 4.18.1): published @erxes/api-shared rejects Yarn Classic through its package-manager engine field. Use Corepack to activate Yarn 4 or select pnpm; do not disable engine or peer checks. The tested host baseline is erxes 3.3.2. Generated projects pin the compatible 3.3.4 shared-library cohort: @erxes/ui, @erxes/ui-modules, and @erxes/api-shared, all pinned exactly. No registry latest lookup or floating erxes range is used when generating a project. React and ReactDOM 18.3.1 constraints are included automatically for transitive peers; no manual overrides are needed. Validate the package cohort against the host when upgrading; runtime host-only singletons do not provide version isolation. Platform projects also constrain the tested telemetry cohort: Sentry Node 10.76.2, OpenTelemetry API 1.9.1, instrumentation 0.220.0 and trace SDK 2.12.0. The unconstrained graph selects API 1.10, outside the SDK's <1.10 peer range. Root npm/pnpm overrides or Yarn resolutions preserve compatible real packages; peer checks remain enabled. Update these constraints together only after fresh strict pnpm, npm and Yarn 4 platform install/codegen/check/lint/build checks.

The baseline exposes are ./config (named CONFIG) and ./<ui.name> (page component). Settings live at /<ui.path>/settings, not /settings/<plugin>. The public plugin name (including dashes) is shared by ui.name, CONFIG, page exposes and API permissions. Only the federation container is normalized: inventory-tools exposes ./inventory-tools in inventory_tools_ui, with the renderable InventoryTools export. Dashed names require the platform fixes that preserve discovery remote keys separately and resolve dashed page exports; this generator does not patch erxes. Use a single-word name on older hosts. Generated APIs must remain behind a trusted gateway: forwarded user/tenant headers are assertions, not independent authentication.

Layout

src/cli.ts        prompts (@clack/prompts) and flags (commander)
src/scaffold.ts   copies template layers and fills tokens (__name__, __Pascal__, …)
src/generated.ts  files that depend on options: erxes.json, package.json, Dockerfile
src/stacks.ts     backends, frontends, package managers
templates/base    root files
templates/api/shared   framework-neutral API files (config, gateway registration)
templates/api/<backend>
templates/ui/react
scripts/embed-templates.ts   embeds templates/ into src/templates.generated.ts
scripts/compile.ts           bun --compile per-target binaries into dist/bin/
install.sh / install.ps1     standalone-binary installers

Dotfiles are stored as _gitignore, _dockerignore, _env.example because npm drops them from published packages. The npm package includes only the compiled Node CLI modules in dist/*.js. Standalone executables and release archives in dist/bin and dist/release belong to the separate GitHub release workflow and are excluded from npm packs.

Adding a backend

1. Add templates/api/<backend>/ with package.json, tsconfig.json and src/ that serve GET /health and /graphql. A stack lists its layers in templates (src/stacks.ts) and they are copied in order into api/; api/standalone already provides gateway.ts (the local joinErxesGateway mirror) and the header-agnostic context.ts, and api/standalone-schema the prefixed status subgraph.
2. Register it in BACKENDS with its integration, label/hint, templates layers, and scripts + dev dependencies per runtime (node, bun).

Develop

pnpm install
pnpm dev my-plugin --pm pnpm      # run the CLI from source
pnpm test                         # scaffolds every package manager into a temp dir
pnpm check && pnpm lint
pnpm build                        # dist/ for publishing
pnpm test:e2e                     # packed CLI: external install/codegen/check/lint/build
E2E_CASE=platform-pnpm pnpm test:e2e # one matrix case
pnpm compile darwin-arm64         # standalone binary in dist/bin/<target>/

Releasing

CI and release both require .github/workflows/deliverables.yml: all six backends plus npm/yarn coverage on the platform stack, each with a React production remote. The test installs the npm-packed CLI outside the checkout, checks installed peers, runs codegen/check/lint/build, and checks emitted federation exposes and the absence of bundled host-singleton fallbacks. Platform cases also execute generated authorization/pagination regressions without starting databases. This is not a full live erxes deployment test.

Merging to main publishes @erxes/create-plugin from CI. Bump package.json in that pull request. If that exact version is already on npm, the workflow leaves it there. No local npm publish and no one-time password are required.

Push a vX.Y.Z tag when you also want the standalone binary GitHub release. .github/workflows/release.yml compiles every target, packs dist/release/ archives plus SHA256SUMS, and publishes that GitHub release. A workflow_dispatch run exercises the same pipeline without publishing.