Using and Creating XL Release Plugins

As you start building out more and more complete release plans in XL Release, you may find that you want to automatically invoke systems for which XL Release doesn’t have out-of-the-box tasks created yet. For instance, tasks for updating a Wiki page, or publishing a blog post.

You can always use the script task for this, of course, but it’s a lot nicer to be able to choose a real “Publish Wiki page” task from the menu. And if you plan to use the task in many places, it’s convenient not have to copy the script over, either.

XL Release’s plugin system allows you to add your own automated tasks in a matter of minutes. A simple snippet of XML and a Python script are all that’s required. You can define input properties required by your tasks, result value that the task returns for use later in the release, and even group tasks into categories.

A plugin definition in XML...

...generates a form in the UI

In fact, if you’ve used any of the JIRA tasks in XL Release, you’ve already seen an XL Release plugin in action!

Check out the plugin manual and get started with your own XL Release plugins today!