Distributing via registry

Distribute, share, and maintain plugins through the Tessl Registry

Once you've created and published a plugin, you'll need to share it with your team, keep it updated, and manage its lifecycle. This guide covers the common tasks for managing published plugins.

Sharing with your team

Add members to your workspace so they can access your private plugins:

tessl workspace add-member --username <tessl-username> --role member --workspace myworkspace

The member role gives read-only access to plugins. See Roles for more information about workspace roles and permissions.

To verify members have been added:

tessl workspace list-members myworkspace

Installing plugins in projects

Team members can install your plugin in their projects:

tessl install myworkspace/your-plugin

Or search for it:

tessl search your-plugin

Private plugins appear in search results for workspace members just like public plugins.

To install a specific version:

tessl install myworkspace/your-plugin@1.0.0

Updating documentation

When your library or service changes, update the plugin to keep documentation current.

For automated plugins

If you used automated generation from a repository:

1. Merge code changes to your repository
2. Navigate to the Tessl interface and regenerate the plugin
3. Review new evaluation results
4. Publish the updated version

See Autogenerating documentation for details on the automated workflow.

For manual plugins

If you created the plugin manually:

1. Edit your documentation files
2. Increment the version in .tessl-plugin/plugin.json (following semantic versioning)
3. Validate with tessl plugin lint
4. Publish with tessl plugin publish

Version guidelines:

• Patch (1.0.0 → 1.0.1): Bug fixes, typo corrections
• Minor (1.0.0 → 1.1.0): New content, backward-compatible changes
• Major (1.0.0 → 2.0.0): Restructuring, breaking changes

Users can update to the latest version:

tessl install myworkspace/your-plugin

Archiving plugins

To remove a plugin from search results without deleting it:

tessl plugin archive --plugin myworkspace/your-plugin@1.0.0 --reason "replaced by new library"

Archived plugins:

• No longer appear in search results
• Cannot be installed by new users
• Remain accessible to projects that already have them installed
• Can be restored by contacting support

Use archiving when:

• A library is deprecated but still used by some projects
• You're migrating to a new plugin and want to phase out the old one
• The plugin is outdated but may still be needed for reference

Unpublishing plugins

To completely remove a plugin within 2 days of upload:

tessl plugin unpublish --plugin myworkspace/your-plugin@1.0.0

Important: Unpublishing is only available within 2 days of the original publish. After that, use archiving instead.

Unpublished plugins are completely removed and cannot be recovered.

Monitoring plugin usage

Track how your plugins are being used:

1. Navigate to the Tessl Registry
2. Log in and select your workspace
3. View your plugins to see usage statistics and install counts

This helps you understand which plugins are most valuable to your team.

Best practices

• Update regularly - Keep documentation in sync with code changes
• Use semantic versioning - Help users understand the impact of updates
• Archive deprecated plugins - Guide users to replacement plugins
• Monitor usage - Focus maintenance effort on widely-used plugins
• Document breaking changes - Communicate major version updates to your team

Related

• Autogenerating documentation - Automated plugin creation
• Workspaces - Understanding workspaces and permissions
• Configuration files - Complete .tessl-plugin/plugin.json reference