A Survey for JetBrains IDE Plugin Developers

If you develop plugins for JetBrains IDEs, there is a good chance we have already met on the JetBrains Platform Slack, answered your questions in the plugin developer forum, or provided the IntelliJ Platform documentation you have read.

Today, the IntelliJ Platform SDK team needs your help to gather feedback that will shape the future of our work. We have launched a Plugin Developer Survey and are looking for as many participants as possible to understand what matters most to you.

We would like to introduce ourselves to give you some context on who is behind this initiative. The IntelliJ Platform SDK team includes Robert, Karol (standing), Patrick, Yann, and Jakub (sitting). We are a small team at JetBrains that connects the core IntelliJ Platform with developers who use the SDK to create plugins. Many of you may know us from Slack or our responses to your questions.

Our team’s responsibilities go far beyond answering questions. We maintain the IntelliJ Platform Gradle Plugin, which many of you use to build, test, and deploy plugins with ease. Recently, we released version 2.x, introducing a completely reworked interface to simplify development. We also maintain the plugin template repository, making it easier to start new projects. To ensure binary compatibility, we continuously improve the IntelliJ Plugin Verifier, a key component of the JetBrains Marketplace. In addition, we have put significant effort into enhancing the Plugin DevKit plugin, which streamlines the development process inside your IDE.

Building a strong community is just as important to us as improving tools for plugin development. We recently created a new home for the community by bringing the public Slack for plugin developers and the IntelliJ Platform forum into the JetBrains Platform community space. Moving the community to Discourse creates a better experience for everyone.

With a small team and many responsibilities, we must prioritize our time and efforts wisely. While we always discuss our plans and the best path forward amongst ourselves, we now want to hear from you. The survey will gather insights into your experiences, but more importantly, we want your input on where you think we should focus our efforts.

Your feedback will help shape the future of our work. If you plan to or already develop plugins, please take a few minutes to share your thoughts and help those who help—we are listening.