develop-cli-plugins.html.md.erb

---
title: Developing cf CLI Plugins
owner: CLI
---

This topic describes creating and installing Cloud Foundry Command Line Interface (cf CLI) plugins.


## <a id='overview'></a> Overview

You can create and install cf CLI plugins to provide custom commands. You can submit and share these plugins to the [CF Community repository](https://plugins.cloudfoundry.org/).


## <a id='prerequisite'></a> Prerequisite

To use plugins, you must use cf CLI v6.7 or later. For information about downloading, installing, and uninstalling the cf CLI, see [Installing the Cloud Foundry Command Line Interface](install-go-cli.html).


## <a id='install-arch'></a> Installing the Architecture

To prepare to create a plugin:

1. Implement the predefined plugin interface from [plugin.go ](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cli/blob/master/plugin/plugin.go) in the Cloud Foundry CLI repository on GitHub.

1. Clone the [Cloud Foundry CLI repository](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cli) from GitHub. To create a plugin, you need the [basic GO plugin](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cli/blob/master/plugin/plugin_examples/basic_plugin.go).


## <a id='initialize'></a> Initializing the Plugin

To initialize a plugin:

1. From within the `main()` method of your plugin, call:

    ```
    plugin.Start(new(MyPluginStruct))
    ```
    The `plugin.Start(...)` function requires a new reference to the `struct` that implements the defined interface.


## <a id='invoke'></a> Invoking cf CLI Commands

To invoke cf CLI commands,

1. From within the `Run(...)` method of your plugin, call:

    ```
    cliConnection.CliCommand([]args)
    ```

The `Run(...)` method receives the `cliConnection` as its first argument. The `cliConnection.CliCommand([]args)` returns the output printed by the command and an error.

The output is returned as a slice of strings. The error occurs if the call to the cf CLI command fails.

For more information, see [Plugin API](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cli/blob/master/plugin/plugin_examples/DOC.md) in the Cloud Foundry CLI repository on GitHub.


## <a id='install-plugin'></a> Installing a Plugin

To install a plugin:

1. Run:

    ```
    cf install-plugin PATH-TO-PLUGIN-BINARY
    ```
    Where `PATH-TO-PLUGIN-BINARY` is the path to your plugin binary.

For more information about developing plugins, see [plugin_examples](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cli/tree/master/plugin/plugin_examples) in the Cloud Foundry CLI repository on GitHub.