# Plugin development

This document is not meant as a complete guide for developing plugins but more as a changelog for changes in
Grafana that can impact plugin development. Whenever you as a plugin author encounter an issue with your plugin after
upgrading Grafana please check here before creating an issue.

## Plugin development resources

- [Grafana plugin developer guide](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/developers/plugins/)
- [Webpack Grafana plugin template project](https://github.com/CorpGlory/grafana-plugin-template-webpack)
- [Simple JSON datasource plugin](https://github.com/grafana/simple-json-datasource)

## Changes in Grafana v4.6

This version of Grafana has big changes that will impact a limited set of plugins. We moved from systemjs to webpack
for built-in plugins and everything internal. External plugins still use systemjs but now with a limited
set of Grafana components they can import. Plugins can depend on libs like lodash & moment and internal components
like before using the same import paths. However since everything in Grafana is no longer accessible, a few plugins could encounter issues when importing a Grafana dependency.

[List of exposed components plugins can import/require](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/main/public/app/features/plugins/plugin_loader.ts#L48)

If you think we missed exposing a crucial lib or Grafana component let us know by opening an issue.

### Deprecated components

The angular directive `<spectrum-picker>` is now deprecated (will still work for a version more) but we recommend plugin authors
upgrade to new `<color-picker color="ctrl.color" onChange="ctrl.onSparklineColorChange"></color-picker>`

## Changes in Grafana v6.0

### DashboardSrv.ts

If you utilize [DashboardSrv](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/commit/8574dca081002f36e482b572517d8f05fd44453f#diff-1ab99561f9f6a10e1fafcddc39bc1d65) in your plugin code, `dash` was renamed to `dashboard`.