Show build plugins installed from netlify.toml on default branch in UI

Up until today, I’ve only tried installing build plugins via netlify.toml so their config can be version controlled - e.g.:

[[plugins]]
  package = "netlify-plugin-cache-nextjs"

But since I was curious, I wanted to try out the build plugin installation workflow in the Netlify UI to see how it was different. After I’d installed one plugin, I was surprised to see that the Plugins page (https://app.netlify.com/sites/<site name>/plugins) only showed the plugin I’d installed via the UI (Lighthouse), and not the one defined in my netlify.toml:

This makes the plugins dashboard not actually a reliable source of truth – it currently claims there’s 1 plugin installed, when there are actually 2! I could (and will) just move this plugin to netlify.toml so they’re all defined in one place, but this Plugins dashboard is extremely valuable. This page gives you a quick overview of what’s installed with descriptions, authors, and links to docs and repos, none of which you get from staring into the abyss of TOML. If this page did show plugins installed via netlify.toml it would save users a lot of time having to mentally reconcile both sources of truth to figure out what’s actually installed, and save time having to hunt down authors, repos, and docs links if netlify.toml is the sole source of truth for build plugins in your repo.

Expected

The Netlify build plugins page shows both plugins installed via the plugins directory and plugins installed via netlify.toml on the repo’s default branch.

Actual

The Netlify build plugins page shows plugins installed via the plugins directory, but not plugins installed via netlify.toml on the repo’s default branch.

Let me know if there’s any more info I could add that would be helpful! :bowing_man:

Hey there! Thanks for bringing this up. I’ve raised this with our internal team and, if there’s any movement, we’ll be sure to let you know. Again, thank you!

1 Like