Files Gatsby Looks for in a Plugin

What files does Gatsby look for in a plugin?

All files are optional unless specifically marked as required.

• package.json — [required] this can be an empty object ({}) for local plugins.
  • name is used to identify the plugin when it mutates Gatsby’s GraphQL data structure
    • if name isn’t set, the folder name for the plugin is used
  • main is the name of the file that will be loaded when your module is required by another application
    • if main isn’t set, a default name of index.js will be used
    • if main isn’t set, it is recommended (but not required) to create an empty index.js file with the contents //no-op (short for no-operation), as seen in this example plugin
  • version is used to manage the cache — if it changes, the cache is cleared
    • if version isn’t set, an MD5 hash of the gatsby-* file contents is used to invalidate the cache
    • omitting the version field is recommended for local plugins
  • keywords is used to make your plugin discoverable
    • plugins published on the npm registry should have gatsby and gatsby-plugin in the keywords field to be added to the Plugin Library
• gatsby-browser.js — usage details are in the browser API reference
• gatsby-node.js — usage details are in the Node API reference
• gatsby-ssr.js — usage details are in the SSR API reference