Question

If I want to add a plugin that’s in a local directory outside the project tree, what’s the right way to do that? Say I clone something simple like https://github.com/steppenwells/sbt-sh.git to /tmp/sbt-sh – what do I put in my build.sbt file to use the plugin from /tmp/sbt-sh that will pick up any changes I make in /tmp/sbt-sh?

Answer 1

Something like this in project/project/Build.scala should do it:

import sbt._
object PluginDef extends Build {
    lazy val projects = Seq(root)
    lazy val root = Project("plugins", file(".")) dependsOn( shPlugin )
    lazy val shPlugin = uri("file:///tmp/sbt-sh")
}

Note that that the doubly-nested project directories are required. I’m not aware of any way to do this from an .sbt file (there may be a way, but I don’t know what it is).

This is documented here (see “1d) Project dependency”).