---
title: "TinyMCE plugin Yeoman generator"
description: "How to use the Yeoman generator to bootstrap a new TinyMCE plugin using ES2015/Babel or TypeScript."
canonical_url: "https://www.tiny.cloud/docs/tinymce/5/yeoman-generator/"
md_url: "https://www.tiny.cloud/docs/tinymce/5/yeoman-generator/index.md"
version: "5"
last_updated: "2024-03-26T08:09:19Z"
tokens: 545
---
Important This page documents TinyMCE 5. For new projects, Tiny recommends using the latest, most up-to-date version. [See TinyMCE 8 documentation](../../latest/).
# TinyMCE plugin Yeoman generator

Tiny maintains a [Yeoman generator](#) to assist with creating plugins for TinyMCE. The Yeoman Generator will create the files and boilerplate code required for a custom plugin, and sets up some helpful commands.

## Install the generator

The plugin generator is built with the project scaffolding tool [Yeoman](http://yeoman.io/). To get started install both `yo` (the yeoman command) and the generator with the following command:

```sh
npm install --global yo generator-tinymce
```
Wait for the install to finish.

## Run the generator

Start the generator with the following command:

```sh
yo tinymce
```
You will then be guided through these questions:

1. **Plugin name:** The name of the plugin.
2. **Plugin description (optional):** An optional description of the plugin.
3. **Initialize git repo?** Here you can skip the creation of a new repository for the plugin.
4. **What’s your name?** For license.
5. **Your email (optional):** For license.
6. **Your website (optional):** For license.
7. **Which license do you want to use?** Choose the license for the plugin.
Yeoman installs the needed dependencies, and the project is bootstrapped and ready. `cd` into the plugin directory and run the following command to start the auto-reloading development server:

```sh
npm start
```

## Create distribution ready build

Run the following command once you have completed development of the plugin:

```sh
yarn build
```
A `dist` directory will be created, containing a sub-directory with the same name as the plugin. The sub-directory will contain the following files:

- `plugin.js` - unminified plugin bundle
- `plugin.min.js` - minified and uglified plugin bundle
- `CHANGELOG.txt` - the text file containing your changes
- `LICENSE.txt` - the text file containing your license
- `version.txt` - the text file containing the version of your plugin
For example, `yarn build` will generate the following output for a plugin named `my_plugin`:

```sh
dist/
└── my_plugin/
    ├── CHANGELOG.txt
    ├── LICENSE.txt
    ├── plugin.js
    ├── plugin.min.js
    └── version.txt
```