Confluence's plugin system allows users and developers to customise and extend Confluence.

Looking for existing plugins? See the existing plugins and extensions written by the community in the [Confluence Extensions] space.

A plugin is a bundle of code, resources and a special configuration file that can be dropped into a Confluence server to add new functionality, or change the behaviour of existing features.

• Administrators can drop plugins into their Confluence server to add new functionality to the system.
• Developers can write plugins for their own Confluence server, or share plugins with other Confluence users.

Some parts of Confluence are implemented entirely as plugins - for example all macros in Confluence 1.3 and later, even those included with the system, are written as plugins.

Confluence Plugin Guide Contents

• Installing and Configuring Plugins manually
• Installing and Configuring Plugins using the Plugin Repository
• Installing plugins overview
• Single Sign-on
• Writing Confluence Plugins
  • Accessing Confluence Components From Plugin Modules
  • Confluence Plugin Module Types
    • Code Formatting Plugins
    • Component Plugins
    • Decorator Plugins
    • Downloadable Plugin Resources
    • Editor Plugins
    • Event Listener Plugins
    • Extractor Plugins
    • Job Plugins
    • Language Pack Plugins
    • Lifecycle Plugins
    • Macro Plugins
    • RPC Plugins
    • Servlet Plugins
    • Spring Component Plugins
    • StateAware
    • Theme Plugins
    • Trigger Plugins
    • User Macro Plugins
    • Velocity Context Plugins
    • Web UI Plugins
    • Workflow Plugins
    • XWork-WebWork Plugins
  • Plugin Self-Configuration

Plugins and Plugin Modules

Every plugin is made up of one or more plugin modules. A single plugin may do many things: a plugin module represents a single function of the plugin.

For example, a theme plugin will consist of a colour-scheme module to define the theme's colours, a number of layout modules to define the site's page layouts, and a theme module to combine those pieces together into a single theme.

Some plugins, such as the macro packs that come with Confluence, are just a collection of unrelated modules that just happen to be packaged together. Other plugins, such as theme plugins, have modules that work together to provide some orchestrated functionality.