v6.0.0-alpha.0

This alpha release brings significant changes to the package generator. We have removed support for the old installation methods and are now fully aligned with the new installation approach. As part of this shift, we took the opportunity to modernize the entire generated project setup.

New plugins are now created with a clean, pre-configured Vite setup instead of the previous webpack-based configuration. The result should feel more familiar to most developers, offer a performance boost, and be much easier to extend and customize as your plugin evolves.

MAJOR BREAKING CHANGES ℹ️

• generator: Removed --installation-methods (-m) flag that was used to provide the CKEditor 5 installation method: either the current (modern) method or the legacy (DLL-based) one. Now, only the current installation method is supported, so no DLL-based files and configurations are generated anymore. For more details on migrating custom plugins, please refer to the documentation. See #280.

• generator: Remove Support for Old Installation Methods. Closes #270.

  As previously announced, the end of March 2026 marks the end of support for Old Installation Methods (OIM), except for Long-Term Support (LTS) releases. This change is part of our ongoing efforts to modernize our tooling and improve the developer experience.

  As a result, the package generator no longer supports OIM-based projects. We encourage all projects to migrate to the new, modern installation methods.

  For more information, see the following discussion: ckeditor/ckeditor5#17779

• generator: Packages created by the generator now use Vite (instead of webpack) to run the development server. Closes #270.

• generator: Upgrade TypeScript to v5.5.4. Closes #270.

• Delete the ckeditor5-package-tools package, as its functionality has been fully integrated into the ckeditor5-package-generator package. See #295.

MINOR BREAKING CHANGES ℹ️

• generator: Removed ts:build and ts:clear scripts from the generated package.json file for TypeScript package. Also, the tsconfig.release.json file is not created anymore. See #286.

Features

• generator: Improved package name validation UX. The tool now prompts for a valid package name instead of exiting when an incorrect name is provided. Closes #283.
• generator: Added graceful handling for prompt cancellation (Ctrl+C). Closes #283.

Other changes

• generator: Removed main, module and types fields from the generated package.json file. See #286.
• generator: Move translations handling from ckeditor5-package-tools to ckeditor5-package-generator templates. See #295.

Released packages

Check out the Versioning policy guide for more information.

Released packages (summary)

Major releases (contain major breaking changes):

• ckeditor5-package-generator: v5.0.1 => v6.0.0-alpha.0