Univer Plugin Development

Guide for building custom plugins that extend Univer's functionality.

Compatibility: This skill is written for Univer v0.21.x. Core plugin patterns (lifecycle, DI, commands) remain stable, but specific service tokens and facade classes may shift. Prefer the user's existing codebase patterns when they differ from examples here.

Quick Start

Scaffold a new plugin

Use the bundled script to generate a minimal plugin skeleton:

# If installed to ~/.codex/skills/
npx tsx ~/.codex/skills/univer-plugin-dev/scripts/scaffold-plugin.ts my-plugin --path ./src/plugins

# Or from this repo directly
npx tsx ~/univer-sdk-skills/skills/univer-plugin-dev/scripts/scaffold-plugin.ts my-plugin --path ./src/plugins

This creates:

my-plugin/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts
│   ├── plugin.ts
│   ├── commands/
│   │   └── commands.my-command.ts
│   ├── controllers/
│   │   └── my-menu.controller.ts
│   └── facade/
│       └── f-univer.ts
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

Register the plugin in your app

import { MyPlugin } from './plugins/my-plugin/src';
import './plugins/my-plugin/src/facade/f-univer'; // side-effect import for Facade extension

univer.registerPlugin(MyPlugin);

Core Concepts

Plugin Lifecycle

Plugins inherit from Plugin and override lifecycle hooks:

Hook	When	What to do
onStarting()	Plugin mounted, no unit yet	Register commands, services, menus, shortcuts
onReady()	Business unit created	Access workbook/doc instance
onRendered()	UI rendered	DOM-dependent initialization
onSteady()	Everything stable	Background tasks

Always use disposeWithMe() to register disposable resources so they auto-cleanup when the plugin is destroyed.

Command System

Three command types:

• COMMAND — Business entry point. Orchestrates mutations and operations. Supports undo/redo if you manually push to IUndoRedoService.
• MUTATION — Atomic data change. Persisted to snapshot. Automatically undoable.
• OPERATION — UI state change. Not persisted. Not undoable.

See references/command-system.md for full examples of each type and undo/redo construction.

Dependency Injection

Univer uses a custom DI container (Injector). Services are retrieved by:

// Constructor injection
@Inject(IMenuManagerService) private readonly _menuService: IMenuManagerService

// Accessor injection (in command handlers)
const service = accessor.get(IMenuManagerService);

Common service tokens:

• ICommandService — register/execute commands
• IMenuManagerService — add menus/toolbar items
• IShortcutService — register keyboard shortcuts
• IContextMenuService — context menus
• ComponentManager — register React components/icons
• IUniverInstanceService — get current workbook/doc/slide
• IUndoRedoService — push undo/redo entries

Facade Extension

Extend Facade classes to expose plugin capabilities to end users:

import { FWorksheet } from '@univerjs/sheets/facade';

class FWorksheetMyMixin extends FWorksheet {
  myMethod(): this {
    // implementation
    return this;
  }
}

FWorksheet.extend(FWorksheetMyMixin);

declare module '@univerjs/sheets/facade' {
  interface FWorksheet extends FWorksheetMyMixin {}
}

Common Tasks

For full examples (submenus, context menus, Range Popup, component replacement, complete toolbar+command+shortcut pipeline), see references/ui-customization.md.

Add a Toolbar Button

this._menuManagerService.mergeMenu({
  [RibbonOthersGroup.OTHERS]: {
    ['my-button']: {
      order: 10,
      menuItemFactory: () => ({
        id: 'my-button',
        title: 'My Button',
        type: MenuItemType.BUTTON,
      }),
    },
  },
});

Register a Command

const MyCommand: ICommand = {
  id: 'my.command.id',
  type: CommandType.COMMAND,
  handler: (accessor) => {
    // business logic
    return true;
  },
};

this._commandService.registerCommand(MyCommand);

Extend Facade

class FWorksheetMyMixin extends FWorksheet {
  myMethod(): this { return this; }
}
FWorksheet.extend(FWorksheetMyMixin);
declare module '@univerjs/sheets/facade' {
  interface FWorksheet extends FWorksheetMyMixin {}
}

References

• Plugin architecture: references/plugin-architecture.md — lifecycle, DI, service registration, controller pattern
• Command system: references/command-system.md — COMMAND / MUTATION / OPERATION, undo/redo, mutation factories, custom mutations
• Facade extension: references/facade-extension.md — extend FUniver, FWorkbook, FWorksheet, FRange, multiple extensions merge strategy
• UI customization: references/ui-customization.md — menus, submenus, shortcuts, context menus, popups, component replacement
• Event system: references/event-system.md — events, hooks, custom events, RxJS streams

Also see univer-integrate skill for:

• Custom formula functions (univer-integrate skill)
• Permissions (univer-integrate skill)
• Network layer (univer-integrate skill)

Scripts

• Scaffold: scripts/scaffold-plugin.ts — generate a new plugin skeleton