Plugin System#

Rsbuild provides a lightweight yet powerful plugin system to implement most of its functionality and allows for user extension.

Plugins written by developers can modify the default behavior of Rsbuild and add various additional features, including but not limited to:

• Get context information
• Register lifecycle hooks
• Transform module source code
• Modify Rspack configuration
• Modify Rsbuild configuration
• ...

Comparison#

Before developing a Rsbuild plugin, you may have been familiar with the plugin systems of tools such as Webpack, Vite, esbuild, etc.

Generally, Rsbuild's plugin API is similar to esbuild, and compared with Webpack / Rspack plugins, Rsbuild's plugin API is more simple and easier to get started with.

// esbuild plugin
const esbuildPlugin = {
  name: 'example',
  setup(build) {
    build.onEnd(() => console.log('done'));
  },
};

// Rsbuild plugin
const rsbuildPlugin = () => ({
  name: 'example',
  setup(api) {
    api.onAfterBuild(() => console.log('done'));
  },
});

// Rspack plugin
class RspackExamplePlugin {
  apply(compiler) {
    compiler.hooks.done.tap('RspackExamplePlugin', () => {
      console.log('done');
    });
  }
}

From a functional perspective, Rsbuild's plugin API mainly revolves around Rsbuild's operation process and build configuration and provides some hooks for extension. On the other hand, Rspack's plugin API is more complex and rich, capable of modifying every aspect of the bundling process.

Rspack plugins can be integrated into Rsbuild plugins. If the hooks provided by Rsbuild do not meet your requirements, you can also implement the functionality using Rspack plugin and register Rspack plugins in the Rsbuild plugin:

const rsbuildPlugin = () => ({
  name: 'example',
  setup(api) {
    api.modifyRspackConfig((config) => {
      config.plugins?.push(new RspackExamplePlugin());
    });
  },
});

Developing Plugins#

Plugins provide a function similar to (options?: PluginOptions) => RsbuildPlugin as an entry point.

Plugin Example#

import type { RsbuildPlugin } from '@rsbuild/core';

export type PluginFooOptions = {
  message?: string;
};

export const pluginFoo = (options: PluginFooOptions = {}): RsbuildPlugin => ({
  name: 'plugin-foo',

  setup(api) {
    api.onAfterStartDevServer(() => {
      const msg = options.message || 'hello!';
      console.log(msg);
    });
  },
});

Registering the plugin:

import { pluginFoo } from './pluginFoo';

export default {
  plugins: [pluginFoo({ message: 'world!' })],
};

Plugin Structure#

Function-based plugins can accept an options object and return a plugin instance, managing internal state through closures.

The roles of each part are as follows:

• The name property is used to label the plugin's name.
• setup serves as the main entry point for the plugin logic.
• The api object contains various hooks and utility functions.

Naming Convention#

The naming convention for plugins is as follows:

• The function of the plugin is named pluginAbc and exported by name.
• The name of the plugin follows the format scope:foo-bar or plugin-foo-bar, adding scope: can avoid naming conflicts with other plugins.

Here is an example:

import type { RsbuildPlugin } from '@rsbuild/core';

export const pluginFooBar = (): RsbuildPlugin => ({
  name: 'scope:foo-bar',
  setup() {},
});

Template Repository#

rsbuild-plugin-template is a minimal Rsbuild plugin template repository that you can use as a basis for developing your Rsbuild plugin.

Lifetime Hooks#

Rsbuild uses lifetime planning work internally, and plugins can also register hooks to take part in any stage of the workflow and implement their own features.

The full list of Rsbuild's lifetime hooks can be found in the API References.

The Rsbuild does not take over the hooks of the underlying Rspack, whose documents can be found here: Rspack Plugin API.

Use Rsbuild Config#

Custom plugins can usually get config from function parameters, just define and use it at your pleasure.

But sometimes you may need to read and change the public config of the Rsbuild. To begin with, you should understand how the Rsbuild generates and uses its config:

• Read, parse config and merge with default values.
• Plugins modify the config by api.modifyRsbuildConfig(...).
• Normalize the config and provide it to consume, then the config can no longer be modified.

Refer to this tiny example:

export const pluginUploadDist = (): RsbuildPlugin => ({
  name: 'plugin-upload-dist',
  setup(api) {
    api.modifyRsbuildConfig((config) => {
      // try to disable minimize.
      config.output ||= {};
      config.output.minify = false;
      // but also can be enable by other plugins...
    });
    api.onBeforeBuild(() => {
      // use the normalized config.
      const config = api.getNormalizedConfig();
      if (config.output.minify !== false) {
        // let it crash when enable minimize.
        throw new Error(
          'You must disable minimize to upload readable dist files.',
        );
      }
    });
    api.onAfterBuild(() => {
      const config = api.getNormalizedConfig();
      const distRoot = config.output.distPath.root;

      // upload all files in `distRoot`...
    });
  },
});

There are 3 ways to use Rsbuild config:

• register callback with api.modifyRsbuildConfig(config => {}) to modify config.
• use api.getRsbuildConfig() to get Rsbuild config.
• use api.getNormalizedConfig() to get finally normalized config.

When normalized, it will again merge the config object with the default values and make sure the optional properties exist. So for PluginUploadDist, part of its type looks like:

api.modifyRsbuildConfig((config: RsbuildConfig) => {});
api.getRsbuildConfig() as RsbuildConfig;
type RsbuildConfig = {
  output?: {
    minify?: boolean;
    distPath?: { root?: string };
  };
};

api.getNormalizedConfig() as NormalizedConfig;
type NormalizedConfig = {
  output: {
    minify: boolean;
    distPath: { root: string };
  };
};

The return value type of getNormalizedConfig() is slightly different from that of RsbuildConfig and is narrowed compared to the types described elsewhere in the documentation. You don't need to fill in the defaults when you use it.

Therefore, the best way to use configuration options is to

• Modify the config with api.modifyRsbuildConfig(config => {})
• Read api.getNormalizedConfig() as the actual config used by the plugin in the further lifetime.

Modifying Rspack Configuration#

The Rsbuild plugin can modify the configuration of Rspack in various ways.

• api.modifyRspackConfig(config => {}) modifies the final Rspack configuration.
• api.modifyBundlerChain(chain => {}) modifies the rspack-chain, usage is similar to rspack-chain.
• api.onAfterCreateCompiler(compiler => {}) directly operates on the Rspack compiler instance.

Example References#

Modifying Loader#

Loaders can read and process different types of file modules, refer to loaders.

import type { RsbuildPlugin } from '@rsbuild/core';

export const pluginTypeScriptExt = (): RsbuildPlugin => ({
  name: 'plugin-typescript-ext',
  setup(api) {
    api.modifyBundlerChain(async (chain) => {
      // Set ts-loader to recognize more files as typescript modules
      chain.module.rule(CHAIN_ID.RULE.TS).test(/\.(?:ts|mts|cts|tsx|tss|tsm)$/);
    });
  },
});

Adding Module Entry#

import type { RsbuildPlugin } from '@rsbuild/core';

export const pluginAdminPanel = (): RsbuildPlugin => ({
  name: 'plugin-admin-panel',
  setup(api) {
    api.modifyBundlerChain(async (chain) => {
      config.entry('admin-panel').add('src/admin/panel.js');
    });
  },
});

Registering Rspack Plugin#

You can register Rspack plugins within Rsbuild plugins, such as registering eslint-webpack-plugin:

import type { RsbuildPlugin } from '@rsbuild/core';
import ESLintPlugin from 'eslint-webpack-plugin';

export const pluginEslint = (options?: Options): RsbuildPlugin => ({
  name: 'plugin-eslint',
  setup(api) {
    // Use rspack-chain to register a bundler plugin.
    api.modifyBundlerChain(async (chain) => {
      chain.plugin('eslint-webpack-plugin').use(ESLintPlugin, [
        {
          // plugins options
        },
      ]);
    });
  },
});