Prasmoid CLI

The All in One Development Toolkit for KDE Plasmoids
Build, test, and manage your plasmoids with unparalleled ease and efficiency.

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Why Prasmoid?

While the core structure of KDE Plasma plasmoids is straightforward, the surrounding development workflow, including setup, building, testing, and deployment often involves repetitive manual steps. Prasmoid CLI is designed to abstract away these boring tasks. It's a powerful command-line tool, crafted with Go, that provides a seamless, integrated experience, allowing you to focus solely on writing your plasmoid's code.

Focus on your code, not the boilerplate. Prasmoid handles the heavy lifting, from project scaffolding and live previews to smart versioning and packaging, allowing you to concentrate on creating amazing plasmoids.

One of its most revolutionary features is a built-in, zero-dependency JavaScript runtime. This allows you to extend the CLI with your own custom commands, automating any workflow imaginable, directly within your project – no Node.js installation required!

🚀 Getting Started

Installation

Prasmoid is designed for quick and easy installation. You can use the provided installer script or install dependencies manually.

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🛠 Dependencies

Prasmoid depends on the following tools being available on your system:

• plasmoidviewer – for testing and running plasmoids
• qmlformat – for formatting QML files
• curl – for fetching release assets
• gettext – for translation tools (xgettext, msgmerge, etc.)

Note

Package names may differ depending on your Linux distribution.
On some systems, these tools are bundled in development kits such as Plasma SDK or Qt tools.
If the installer cannot resolve them automatically, please install the tools manually using your package manager.

Important

Want to extend installer support for your distro?
Please open an issue or submit a PR.
We just need a regular user of your distro to help test and add support.

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📦 Manual Dependency Installation (per distro)

If you prefer to install dependencies manually (instead of using the installer), here are the commands for supported package managers:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install -y curl qt6-tools-dev plasma-sdk gettext

# Fedora
sudo dnf install -y curl qmlformat plasma-sdk gettext

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -Sy --noconfirm curl qt6-declarative plasma-sdk gettext
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/qt6/bin/qmlformat /usr/bin/qmlformat

# Alpine
sudo apk add curl qt6-qttools-dev plasma-sdk gettext
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/qt6/bin/qmlformat /usr/bin/qmlformat

Recommended: Standard Build (Native)

• Best for: Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and most general-purpose Linux distros.
• This version is compiled with CGO enabled and links to your system's native libraries for full integration and performance.
• Might not work on minimal or stripped-down systems without standard dev libraries.

sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PRASSamin/prasmoid/main/install | bash -s 1

Portable Build (Static)

• Best for: Alpine, NixOS, minimal Docker images, CI/CD environments, or any system without full libc/glibc.
• Fully statically linked (CGO disabled), built to just run anywhere, even on weird-ass environments where shared libs are missing.
• Slightly larger binary, but way more portable.

sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PRASSamin/prasmoid/main/install | bash -s 2

Packages

Arch Linux (AUR)

• Best for: Arch, Manjaro, and other Arch-based distros.
• Tested on: 'Arch Linux' (fully up-to-date as of 2025-08-05)

  yay -S prasmoid

Debian/Ubuntu (.deb)

• Best for: Debian, (K)Ubuntu, and other Debian derivatives.
• Tested on: 'Debian testing' (nightly snapshot 2025-10-04), 'Kubuntu 25.04'
• Debian package
• PPA repository
  • Pre-requisite - add repo:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:northern-lights/prasmoid
  sudo apt update

  • Install:

  sudo apt install prasmoid

Fedora (.rpm)

• Best for: Fedora, RHEL, CentOS and other Fedora derivatives.
• Tested on: 'Fedora 42'
• x86_64 Fedora package
• COPR repository
  • Pre-requisite - add repo:

  sudo dnf copr enable northernlights/prasmoid # for dnf5

  • Install:

  sudo dnf install prasmoid

Snap

• Best for: Anywhere with snaps available.
• Tested on: 'Kubuntu 25.04'
• Snap package

  snap install prasmoid

Installation via Go

• Best for: Any system with Go installed.
• Tested on: 'Fedora Linux 42(KDE)'

Important

This method requires Go to be installed on your system.

go install github.com/PRASSamin/prasmoid

Updating Prasmoid

Keep Prasmoid up to date with the latest features and improvements using one of these methods:

1. CLI Method (Recommended)

The simplest way to update Prasmoid is by using the built-in update command:

sudo prasmoid upgrade

Tip

This command is a convenient wrapper around the manual update method. It's designed to be lightweight and efficient, avoiding the need for additional internal update logic that would increase the binary size.

2. Manual Update via Curl

If you prefer a manual update, you can use curl:

sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PRASSamin/prasmoid/main/update | sudo bash -s $(which prasmoid)

3. Go Upgrade

Upgrading Go Installations

If you installed Prasmoid using go install, use the following command to upgrade:

sudo env "PATH=$PATH" prasmoid upgrade

Note

You can also use the Manual Update via Curl method mentioned above. However, if you want to use the CLI method, you must use the env "PATH=$PATH" prefix as shown.

Warning

The env "PATH=$PATH" is required because sudo uses a restricted PATH by default. This ensures the system can locate the Go-installed prasmoid binary in your user's Go bin directory.

Your First Plasmoid Project

Creating a new plasmoid is incredibly simple with prasmoid init.

1. Run the initialization command:

   prasmoid init

2. Follow the interactive prompts: Prasmoid will guide you through setting up your project details:

   ? Project name: MyAwesomePlasmoid
   ? Description: A new plasmoid project.
   ? Choose a license: GPL-3.0+
   ? Author: Alex Doe
   ? Author email: alex@example.com
   ? Plasmoid ID: org.kde.myawesomeplasmoid
   ? Initialize a git repository? Yes
   

   Once completed, a new project directory will be created with your chosen configuration, ready for development!

Command Reference

Prasmoid provides a comprehensive set of commands to manage your plasmoid projects.

Command	Description	Usage & Flags
init	Initializes a new plasmoid project.	prasmoid init [-n <name>] -n, --name: Project name.
build	Packages the project into a .plasmoid archive.	prasmoid build [-o <output_dir>] -o, --output: Output directory (default: ./build).
preview	Launches the plasmoid in a live preview window.	prasmoid preview [-w] -w, --watch: Auto-restart on file changes.
format	Formats all .qml files in the contents directory using qmlformat.	prasmoid format [-d <dir>] [-w] -d, --dir: Directory to format (default: ./contents). -w, --watch: Watch and auto-format.
link	Symlinks the project to KDE’s development plasmoids directory.	prasmoid link [-w] -w, --where: Show the linked path only.
unlink	Removes the symlink created by link.	prasmoid unlink
install	Installs the plasmoid system-wide for production use.	prasmoid install
uninstall	Uninstalls the plasmoid from the system.	prasmoid uninstall
changeset	Manages versioning and changelogs.	See subcommands below.
changeset add	Creates a new changeset with version bump and summary.	prasmoid changeset add [-b <type>] [-s <summary>] -b, --bump: patch, minor, or major. -s, --summary: Changelog summary.
changeset apply	Applies pending changesets to metadata.json and CHANGELOG.md.	prasmoid changeset apply
command	Manages custom JavaScript CLI commands.	See subcommands below.
command add	Adds a new custom JS command in .prasmoid/commands/.	prasmoid command add [-n <name>] -n, --name: Command name.
command remove	Removes a custom command.	prasmoid command remove [-n <name>] -n, --name: Command name.
i18n	Handles internationalization tasks.	See subcommands below.
i18n extract	Extracts strings for translation from metadata and QML files.	prasmoid i18n extract --no-po: Skip .po generation.
i18n compile	Compiles .po files into .mo files for use in plasmoids.	prasmoid i18n compile -s, --silent: Suppress output.
i18n locales	Manages supported locales.	See subcommands below.
i18n locales edit	Launches locale selector to edit supported locales.	prasmoid i18n locales edit
regen	Regenerates config or type definition files.	See subcommands below.
regen types	Regenerates prasmoid.d.ts.	prasmoid regen types
regen config	Regenerates prasmoid.config.js.	prasmoid regen config
upgrade	Updates Prasmoid itself to the latest version.	prasmoid upgrade
fix	Install missing dependencies or fix other issues.	prasmoid fix

Extending Prasmoid with Custom Commands

Prasmoid's most powerful and unique feature is its extensibility through custom JavaScript commands. This allows you to automate any project-specific workflow directly within your CLI, without needing Node.js installed on your system.

How it Works: The Embedded JavaScript Runtime

Prasmoid includes a lightweight, high-performance JavaScript runtime embedded directly within its Go binary. This runtime provides a Node.js-like environment, offering synchronous APIs for common modules such as fs, os, path, child_process, and a custom prasmoid module for CLI-specific interactions.

This means you can write powerful automation scripts in JavaScript, and Prasmoid will execute them natively, making your custom commands fast, portable, and truly zero-dependency for end-users.

Creating a Custom Command

1. Generate the command file:

   prasmoid command add deploy

   This will create a file like .prasmoid/commands/deploy.js.

2. Edit the file to define your command's logic. Prasmoid automatically adds type definitions (prasmoid.d.ts) for autocompletion and type-checking in editors like VS Code.

   // .prasmoid/commands/hello.js
   
   /// <reference path="../../prasmoid.d.ts" />
   const prasmoid = require("prasmoid");
   const fs = require("fs"); // Example: You can use fs module
   
   prasmoid.Command({
     // The main function to run when the command is executed
     run: (ctx) => {
       const name = ctx.Flags().get("name") || "World";
       console.green(`Hello, ${name}!`); // Use Prasmoid's colored console
   
       const args = ctx.Args();
       if (args.length > 0) {
         console.yellow("Arguments received:", args.join(", "));
       }
   
       // Example: Read a file using the embedded fs module
       try {
         const content = fs.readFileSync("somefile.txt", "utf8");
         console.log("File content:", content);
       } catch (e) {
         console.red("Error reading file:", e.message);
       }
     },
   
     // A short description shown in the help list
     short: "Prints a greeting.",
   
     // A longer, more detailed description for 'prasmoid help hello'
     long: "A simple command that prints a greeting. You can use the --name flag to customize the greeting.\n\nExample:\n  prasmoid hello --name 'Alice'",
   
     // Define command-line flags
     flags: [
       {
         name: "name",
         shorthand: "n",
         type: "string",
         default: "World",
         description: "The name to greet.",
       },
     ],
   });

3. Run your custom command:

   $ prasmoid hello
   # Output: Hello, World!
   
   $ prasmoid hello --name "Prasmoid" an-argument
   # Output: Hello, Prasmoid!
   #         Arguments received: an-argument

Available JavaScript Modules & APIs

The embedded runtime provides a subset of Node.js-like APIs, focusing on synchronous operations suitable for CLI scripting:

• prasmoid: Custom module for CLI interactions.
  • prasmoid.Command(config): Registers a new command.
  • prasmoid.getMetadata(key): Reads values from metadata.json.
  • ctx.Args(): Get command-line arguments.
  • ctx.Flags().get(name): Get flag values.
• console: Enhanced logging with color support (console.log, console.red, console.green, console.color, etc.).
• fs: Synchronous file system operations (fs.readFileSync, fs.writeFileSync, fs.existsSync, fs.readdirSync, etc.).
• os: Operating system information (os.arch, os.platform, os.homedir, os.tmpdir, etc.).
• child_process: Execute shell commands synchronously (child_process.execSync).
• process: Process information and control (process.exit, process.cwd, process.env, process.uptime, process.memoryUsage, process.nextTick).
• path: Utilities for working with file paths (path.join, path.resolve, path.basename, path.extname, etc.).

Note

The embedded runtime currently supports synchronous file system operations only. Asynchronous functions (e.g., fs.readFile) are not implemented.

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Contributing

We welcome contributions from the community! Whether it's bug reports, feature requests, or code contributions, your help is invaluable.

• Report Bugs: If you find an issue, please open a GitHub Issue.
• Suggest Features: Have an idea for a new feature? Open an issue to discuss it.

For more information on how to contribute, see the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

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💖 Credits

• clorteau – packaging – GitHub

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.