Plugins

What are plugins?

Plugins are Node.js modules that hook into JSDoc's processing pipeline. They can:

• Define new tags or override existing ones
• Transform the doclet tree before output is generated
• Add event handlers for parse and visit events

Enabling plugins

Add plugin paths or module names to the plugins array in your configuration file:

{
  "plugins": [
    "plugins/markdown",
    "jsdoc-plugin-typescript"
  ]
}

Paths starting with plugins/ refer to built-in plugins bundled with JSDoc. Module names are resolved from node_modules.

Built-in plugins

Plugin	Description
plugins/markdown	Renders Markdown in JSDoc descriptions and tag values.
plugins/summarize	Automatically generates a @summary from the first sentence of a description.

Writing a plugin

A plugin is a module that exports one or more of the following:

exports.handlers = {
  /** Called when a new doclet is created. */
  newDoclet({ doclet }) {
    if (doclet.description) {
      doclet.description = doclet.description.toUpperCase();
    }
  },
};

exports.defineTags = function (dictionary) {
  dictionary.defineTag('todo', {
    mustHaveValue: true,
    onTagged(doclet, tag) {
      doclet.todo = doclet.todo || [];
      doclet.todo.push(tag.value);
    },
  });
};

note

Plugin order matters — plugins are applied in the order they appear in the plugins array.

See also

• Markdown plugin
• Configuration file

Official reference: jsdoc.app/about-plugins