aliucord-plugins/guide/01-setup.md

Setup

What you need

• A PC (mobile-only development is unsupported)
• Roughly 8 GB RAM minimum, 16 GB is more comfortable on Windows
• Git
• Android Studio (recommended over VS Code)
• JDK 21+ (Adoptium / Temurin / Azul Zulu all fine)
• JADX or Aliucord's JADX fork for decompiling Discord
• A physical Android device or x86_64 emulator with Aliucord installed via Aliucord Manager

Older notes in docs/documentation/plugin-dev/0_prerequisites.md still mention JDK 11. The current template and gradle plugin target JDK 21. Follow the template.

If Gradle fails TLS handshakes on older JDKs, add this to gradle.properties:

org.gradle.jvmargs=-Dhttps.protocols=TLSv1.2

Create your plugin repo

Use the official template. Local copy lives at docs/plugins-template. Upstream: Aliucord/plugins-template.

1. On GitHub: Use this template → create a new repo.
2. Tick Include all branches. That brings the empty builds branch you need for publishing later.
3. Clone your new repo.
4. Open it in Android Studio.

Fill the TODOs

Open plugins/build.gradle.kts and set:

• namespace to your package (e.g. com.github.yourname)
• author("yourname", discordUserId, hyperlink = true)
• github("https://github.com/you/your-plugins")

Per-plugin metadata lives in each plugin's own build.gradle.kts:

version = "1.0.0"
description = "What the plugin does"

aliucord {
    changelog.set(
        """
        # 1.0.0
        * Initial release
        """.trimIndent(),
    )
    deploy.set(false) // flip to true when you are ready to publish
}

Android Studio bits that matter

1. Settings → Experimental → enable Configure all Gradle tasks during Gradle sync.
2. Sync Gradle (Ctrl+Shift+O / Cmd+Shift+O).
3. Open the Gradle tool window. Under your plugin project you should see deployWithAdb and make.

Device prep

1. Install Aliucord with Manager.
2. Sign in with a throwaway Discord account. Do not test on your main.
3. Plug in the phone (or start the emulator) and accept the ADB authorization prompt.

First build

From Android Studio, run the plugin's deployWithAdb task.

From the CLI:

# Linux / macOS
./gradlew :MyFirstKotlinPlugin:make
./gradlew :MyFirstKotlinPlugin:deployWithAdb

# Windows
.\gradlew.bat :MyFirstKotlinPlugin:make
.\gradlew.bat :MyFirstKotlinPlugin:deployWithAdb

Built zips land under $PLUGIN_DIR/build/outputs/ (path printed by the make task). The build directories are often hidden in Android Studio's tree view.

Gradle plugin context

docs/gradle-plugin documents the build tooling. Plugins currently compile against Discord 126.21 (126021). Discord and Aliucord are compileOnly dependencies. You do not ship them inside the zip.

Next: Plugin anatomy