jetbrains: drop bundled plugins by theCapypara · Pull Request #470147 · NixOS/nixpkgs

theCapypara · 2025-12-12T13:23:57Z

The bundled plugins in nixpkgs are kinda a headache to maintain (especially the "special plugins") and are updated very infrequently (along with IDE updates).

This PR drops them. This is a discussion, feel free to voice your opinion! I however don't think that bundling these inside of nixpkgs itself is much of an advantage. Having them outside of nixpkgs allows for much faster updates and makes maintaining the Jetbrains stack in general much easier.

I also plan to add support for updateScript / rryan-tm and having to also update all plugins every time would lead to merge conflicts all the time.

This does not remove the addPlugins function. It is still possible to add plugins by providing the source to them.

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jamesward · 2025-12-14T18:28:56Z

I agree with this approach.

MattSturgeon · 2025-12-18T00:08:22Z

The bundled plugins in nixpkgs are kinda a headache to maintain (especially the "special plugins") and are updated very infrequently (along with IDE updates).

If they are hard to maintain, or aren't actively maintained, then I agree they should be dropped.

I did enjoy the convenience of addPlugins idea [ "ideavim" ], but if we can find more maintainable out-of-tree ways to package plugins, such that addPlugins remains useful, then I suppose that makes sense.

Having them outside of nixpkgs allows for much faster updates and makes maintaining the Jetbrains stack in general much easier.

It'd be great if we could actually make it easier to use addPlugins on obscure plugins that were never going to make it into nixpkgs?

This does not remove the addPlugins function.

Off-topic, but does a separate plugins.addPlugins attribute really make the most sense? I wonder if adding a withPlugins directly to the the IDE package's passthru attrs would be a cleaner API... 🤔 Internally, this could reference finalAttrs.finalPackage.

theCapypara · 2025-12-18T16:18:38Z

If they are hard to maintain, or aren't actively maintained, then I agree they should be dropped.

I did enjoy the convenience of addPlugins idea [ "ideavim" ], but if we can find more maintainable out-of-tree ways to package plugins, such that addPlugins remains useful, then I suppose that makes sense.
...
It'd be great if we could actually make it easier to use addPlugins on obscure plugins that were never going to make it into nixpkgs?

There is https://github.com/nix-community/nix-jetbrains-plugins which I recently moved to nix-community and can pretty much do that for you:

{
  environment.systemPackages = with nix-jetbrains-plugins.lib."${system}"; [
    # Adds the latest IDEA version with the latest compatible version of "com.intellij.plugins.watcher".
    (buildIdeWithPlugins pkgs.jetbrains "idea" ["com.intellij.plugins.watcher"])
  ];
}

It just doesn't have any of the special plugins code, it's just the plugins straight up from the repo. But I have never ran into any plugin that doesn't just work. We could allow contributions over there to allow a similiar "special plugins" logic, but I just fear nobody would maintain it. For the few that need special things, those reportedly always just have worked when installed through the IDE, which IMO is a perfectly fine workaround for the handful of plugins that need it.

Off-topic, but does a separate plugins.addPlugins attribute really make the most sense? I wonder if adding a withPlugins directly to the the IDE package's passthru attrs would be a cleaner API... 🤔 Internally, this could reference finalAttrs.finalPackage.

True! We should do that in a follow-up PR

leona-ya

I agree with this change, the plugins are awful to maintain

MattSturgeon

Removing plugins SGTM. I've reviewed the relevant documentation below:

doc/release-notes/rl-2605.section.md

pkgs/applications/editors/jetbrains/readme.md

theCapypara · 2025-12-24T10:05:13Z

@MattSturgeon Thanks for your suggestions, I applied them.

MattSturgeon

I spotted a minor issue with the error message that doesn't make as much sense now that addPlugins doesn't do plugin resolution. (I should really have noticed this in my earlier review, sorry!)

Otherwise, LGTM. Are you good for this to be merged when resolved, or do you want to wait for further input?

MattSturgeon · 2025-12-24T20:59:11Z

pkgs/applications/editors/jetbrains/plugins/default.nix

        if lib.isDerivation plugin then
          plugin
-        else if byId ? "${plugin}" then
-          byId."${plugin}" ide.pname ide.buildNumber
-        else if byName ? "${plugin}" then
-          byName."${plugin}" ide.pname ide.buildNumber
        else
-          throw "Could not resolve plugin ${plugin}";
+          throw "Could not resolve plugin ${plugin}. Note that plugins can no longer be added by name/ID since NixOS 26.05.";


We could simplify to lib.throwIfNot (lib.isDerivation plugin) "..." plugin

Also, this error should no longer be about "resolving pulgins". Instead it should be a deprecation notice along the lines of

addPlugins no longer supports resolving plugin name or id strings. Please supply a derivation instead.

Suggested change

if lib.isDerivation plugin then

plugin

else if byId ? "${plugin}" then

byId."${plugin}" ide.pname ide.buildNumber

else if byName ? "${plugin}" then

byName."${plugin}" ide.pname ide.buildNumber

else

throw "Could not resolve plugin ${plugin}";

throw "Could not resolve plugin ${plugin}. Note that plugins can no longer be added by name/ID since NixOS 26.05.";

lib.throwIfNot (lib.isDerivation) "addPlugins no longer supports resolving plugin name or id strings. Please supply a derivation instead" plugin;

(will probably need formatting, may benefit from improved wording)

Co-authored-by: Matt Sturgeon <[email protected]>

theCapypara · 2025-12-25T09:57:20Z

I think we can merge this.

see NixOS/nixpkgs#470147

theCapypara force-pushed the jetbrains/drop-plugins branch from 093384b to 8eb970b Compare December 12, 2025 13:28

theCapypara requested review from MattSturgeon, aoli-al, jamesward and leona-ya December 12, 2025 13:31

theCapypara force-pushed the jetbrains/drop-plugins branch from 8eb970b to 3998cdd Compare December 13, 2025 22:51

theCapypara mentioned this pull request Dec 14, 2025

jetbrains: idea-oss, pycharm-oss: 2025.1.1.1 -> 2025.3.1 #470774

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nixpkgs-ci bot added the 2.status: merge conflict This PR has merge conflicts with the target branch label Dec 15, 2025

leona-ya approved these changes Dec 20, 2025

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theCapypara force-pushed the jetbrains/drop-plugins branch from 3998cdd to 81c9618 Compare December 21, 2025 14:38

nixpkgs-ci bot removed the 2.status: merge conflict This PR has merge conflicts with the target branch label Dec 21, 2025

MattSturgeon reviewed Dec 23, 2025

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theCapypara force-pushed the jetbrains/drop-plugins branch from 81c9618 to 38c6630 Compare December 24, 2025 10:05

MattSturgeon reviewed Dec 24, 2025

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jetbrains: drop bundled plugins

1daa63c

Co-authored-by: Matt Sturgeon <[email protected]>

theCapypara force-pushed the jetbrains/drop-plugins branch from 38c6630 to 1daa63c Compare December 25, 2025 09:56

qweered approved these changes Dec 25, 2025

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nixpkgs-ci bot added 12.approvals: 2 This PR was reviewed and approved by two persons. and removed 12.approvals: 1 This PR was reviewed and approved by one person. labels Dec 25, 2025

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MattSturgeon added this pull request to the merge queue Dec 25, 2025

nixpkgs-ci bot added 12.approvals: 3+ This PR was reviewed and approved by three or more persons. and removed 12.approvals: 2 This PR was reviewed and approved by two persons. labels Dec 25, 2025

Merged via the queue into NixOS:master with commit 09af4be Dec 25, 2025
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sarahec pushed a commit to sarahec/nixpkgs that referenced this pull request Dec 25, 2025

jetbrains: drop bundled plugins (NixOS#470147)

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MrSom3body added a commit to MrSom3body/dotfiles that referenced this pull request Dec 30, 2025

school/jetbrains: use nix-community/nix-jetbrains-plugins for plugins

e146de6

see NixOS/nixpkgs#470147

MrSom3body added a commit to MrSom3body/dotfiles that referenced this pull request Dec 30, 2025

school/jetbrains: use nix-community/nix-jetbrains-plugins for plugins

ca69184

see NixOS/nixpkgs#470147

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theCapypara commented Dec 12, 2025

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jamesward commented Dec 14, 2025

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