Skip to content

CONTRIBUTING.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
216 lines (157 loc) · 8.61 KB

CONTRIBUTING.md

File metadata and controls

216 lines (157 loc) · 8.61 KB

Contributing to the Command Palette Extensions Gallery

Welcome! We're excited that you want to share your extension with the Command Palette community. This guide walks you through submitting your extension to the gallery so users can discover and install it.

Overview

This repository is the community gallery for Microsoft Command Palette extensions. Each extension is represented by a folder containing metadata and an icon. A CI pipeline aggregates all submissions into a single extensions.json file at the repo root that the Command Palette app fetches at runtime.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • Git installed on your machine
  • A GitHub account
  • Your extension already published on one of the supported install sources:

Step-by-step submission guide

1. Fork this repository

Click the Fork button at the top-right of the CmdPal-Extensions repository page to create your own copy.

2. Create a new branch

git checkout -b add-my-extension

3. Create your extension folder

Create a folder under extensions/ using the naming convention:

extensions/<author>/<extension-name>/

Naming rules:

Rule Detail
Structure <author>/<extension-name> — author folder containing extension folder
Author Your name or org, lowercase alphanumeric + hyphens (e.g., jiripolasek, microsoft)
Extension name Lowercase alphanumeric + hyphens (e.g., media-controls)
No leading/trailing hyphens Each segment must start and end with an alphanumeric character

Examples:

  • ✅ jiripolasek/media-controls
  • ✅ my-company/clipboard-manager
  • ❌ MediaControls (missing author folder, uppercase)
  • ❌ my_company/clipboard_manager (underscores not allowed)

4. Add extension.json

Create an extension.json file inside your folder. Here is the full template with all available fields:

{
  "$schema": "../../../.github/schemas/extension.schema.json",
  "id": "publisher.my-extension",
  "title": "My Extension",
  "shortDescription": "A short description of what the extension does (max 200 characters).",
  "description": "A longer, detailed description of the extension. Typically sourced from the Store listing or project README.",
  "author": {
    "name": "Publisher Display Name",
    "url": "https://github.com/publisher"
  },
  "icon": "icon.png",
  "homepage": "https://github.com/publisher/extension",
  "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"],
  "categories": ["productivity", "utilities-and-tools"],
  "installSources": [
    {
      "type": "winget",
      "id": "Publisher.PackageName"
    }
  ]
}

Field reference

Field Required Description
$schema Optional Path to the JSON schema. Enables editor autocompletion and validation. Use "../../../.github/schemas/extension.schema.json".
id Required Unique identifier in author.extension-name format (e.g., jiripolasek.media-controls). Must match your folder path (author/extension-name).
title Required Human-readable display name (max 100 characters).
shortDescription Required Short one-line description of the extension (max 200 characters).
description Required Full description of the extension, typically sourced from the Store listing or README (max 3000 characters).
author Required Object with name (required, max 100 characters) and url (optional).
icon Required Filename of the icon in the same folder (e.g., icon.png).
installSources Required Array of install source objects. Each has a type and a type-specific identifier. See below.
homepage Optional URL to the project homepage or repository.
tags Optional Up to 5 freeform tags for filtering (each max 30 characters).
categories Optional Up to 3 categories from a fixed list. See Allowed categories below.
listed Optional Whether the extension appears in the public gallery. Defaults to true. Set to false for sample or test extensions.

Install source types

Each object in the installSources array has a type and a type-specific field:

Type Field Description Example
winget id The winget package identifier "Publisher.PackageName"
msstore id Microsoft Store product ID "9n3bq81g19k7"
url uri Direct download or release page URL "https://github.com/publisher/extension/releases"

Allowed categories

Choose up to 3 categories from the following fixed list:

Category Description
developer-tools Coding, debugging, developer utilities
education Learning, study aids
entertainment Streaming, media playback
music Listening, creating, performing music
news-and-weather News, forecasts
personalization Themes, wallpaper, appearance
photo-and-video Capture, editing, sharing
productivity Task management, workflow, note-taking
social Messaging, communication, collaboration
utilities-and-tools Calculators, converters, file managers

5. Add an icon

Place an icon file in your extension folder alongside extension.json.

  • Formats: PNG (.png) or SVG (.svg)
  • Max file size: 100 KB
  • Recommended dimensions: 256×256 pixels for PNG files
  • The filename must match the icon field in your extension.json

6. Add screenshots (optional)

To showcase your extension, add screenshots to a screenshots/ folder inside your extension directory:

extensions/<author>/<extension-name>/
├── extension.json
├── icon.png
└── screenshots/
    ├── 01-main-view.png
    ├── 02-settings.png
    └── 03-search-results.jpg

Screenshot rules:

Rule Detail
Folder name screenshots/ inside your extension folder
Formats PNG (.png) or JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg)
Max file size 1 MB per screenshot
Max count 5 screenshots
Ordering Alphabetical by filename — prefix with numbers to control order (e.g., 01-, 02-)

Screenshots are automatically discovered by the gallery generation process when maintainers regenerate the gallery and update extensions.json with screenshotUrls. You do not need to reference them in extension.json.

7. Open a pull request

Push your branch to your fork and open a pull request targeting the main branch of this repository.

git add extensions/my-publisher/my-extension/
git commit -m "Add my-publisher.my-extension to gallery"
git push origin add-my-extension

Then open a PR on GitHub.

8. CI validation

Our CI pipeline automatically validates your submission. It checks that:

  • Your extension.json conforms to the schema
  • Required fields are present and correctly formatted
  • The id matches the folder path (author.extension-name ↔ author/extension-name/)
  • The icon file exists and is within size limits

If the CI reports errors, review the logs, fix the issues, and push updated commits to your PR branch.

9. Maintainer review and merge

A maintainer will review your PR. Once approved and merged, a maintainer will regenerate the gallery and open a separate PR to update extensions.json. After that PR is merged, your extension will appear in the Command Palette Extension Gallery.

Want to understand how the pipeline works? See Architecture for full details.

Updating an existing extension

To update an already-published extension (e.g., bump the version, update the description, or change the icon):

  1. Create a new branch in your fork
  2. Update the files in your existing extensions/<author>/<extension-name>/ folder
  3. Open a new pull request targeting main

The same CI validation and review process applies.

Reference

See extensions/microsoft/sample-extension/ for a complete working example of a gallery submission.

Schema reference

For editor autocompletion and inline validation, add the $schema property to the top of your extension.json:

{
  "$schema": "../../../.github/schemas/extension.schema.json"
}

This enables IntelliSense in VS Code and other editors that support JSON Schema, giving you autocomplete suggestions, field descriptions, and real-time validation as you edit.