Installation

Run without installing

Always pin to an exact version in scripts and hooks — never use @latest:

# Explore (one-off)
npx universal-plugin@latest --help

# Scripts and CI (pin to current version)
npx universal-plugin@$(npm view universal-plugin version) build

Install globally

npm install -g universal-plugin
universal-plugin build

Fast repeated calls: upx

npx re-resolves and re-spawns on every call — roughly 1s of overhead each time, even when the package is already cached. If a skill or script calls a CLI many times, that adds up. upx is a second bin shipped by this package that finds an already-installed version satisfying a semver range and runs it directly, about 10× faster, falling back to npx when nothing local matches:

npm i -g universal-plugin   # installs the upx bin alongside universal-plugin

upx cyber-skills@^2 audit validate

Use a caret range (@^2), not an exact pin — that’s what lets one global install serve every caller at that major. upx only exists once installed; npx ships with npm by default, so keep using npx for environments where universal-plugin isn’t installed globally.

Install as a dev dependency

npm install --save-dev universal-plugin
# or
pnpm add -D universal-plugin

Then use it from package.json scripts:

{
  "scripts": {
    "build:plugin": "universal-plugin build",
    "postinstall": "universal-plugin build"
  }
}

Requirements

• Node.js >= 22
• A plugin.json at the plugin root (see Introduction)