CLion Plugin Development

CLion is an IntelliJ Platform-based product. Plugin projects for CLion can be developed using IntelliJ IDEA with the Gradle IntelliJ Plugin.

Configuring Plugin Projects Targeting CLion

The configuration of CLion plugin projects follows the methods described in Configuring Plugin Projects using a Product-Specific Attribute, and Configuring the plugin.xml File.

The table below summarizes the Gradle IntelliJ Plugin attributes to set in the plugin project's Gradle build script. Click on an entry in the table's Attribute column to go to the documentation about that attribute.

`gradle-intellij-plugin` Attribute	Attribute Value
`intellij.type`	`CL` for the product CLion.
`intellij.version`	Set to the targeted CLion version, e.g. `2019.3.1`.
`intellij.plugins`	No specific declaration is needed.
`intellij.downloadSources`	`false` is required because no public source code is available.
`runIde.ideDir`	Not needed; the Development Instance will automatically match `intellij.type`.

The dependency on the CLion APIs must be declared in the plugin.xml file. As described in Modules Specific to Functionality table, the <depends> tags must declare com.intellij.modules.clion module dependency, or com.intellij.clion plugin dependency for plugins targeting only versions 2020.3+.

Available CLion APIs

Use the Exploring APIs as a Consumer process to identify the JAR files under the External Library Gradle:com.jetbrains:clion:<version>. Test your plugin with versions of CLion you intend to support.

Open Source Plugins for CLion

When learning new APIs, it is helpful to have some representative projects for reference:

Last modified: 29 March 2023