Consumer Sync: One Source, Many Projects

The Distribution Challenge

• **The challenge** — Building a plugin is half the battle. Distributing it across multiple projects is the other half. We maintain 4 plugins in one source repo, synced to 4 consumer repos.
• **Sync script responsibilities** — Copies skills, agents, rules, and hooks. Respects per-repo config differences. Preserves local overrides. Reports what changed after each sync.
• **The version bump trap** — When bumping plugin versions, you must update 5 files: dx-core/plugin.json, dx-hub/plugin.json, dx-aem/plugin.json, dx-automation/plugin.json, AND .claude-plugin/marketplace.json in the consumer repo root. Miss the marketplace.json and the consumer thinks it has an old version.
• **Lessons learned** — Always read the consumer's local config before applying changes (branch names, paths, feature flags vary per project). Test sync on one consumer before syncing all four.

The Sync Playbook

1. 1 **Version bump checklist**
   • › Update each plugin's plugin.json (version field)
   • › Update .claude-plugin/marketplace.json in each consumer repo
   • › Run sync script
   • › Diff the result to verify no accidental deletions
   • › Test `/plugin list` in a consumer to confirm version match
2. 2 **Test before you ship** — Sync on one consumer project before distributing to all. Catch issues early with a single test target rather than debugging across four repos.
3. 3 **Diff after every sync** — Review the diff to catch accidental deletions. A sync script that removes a file you customized locally is a silent breakage.
4. 4 **Respect local overrides** — Each consumer may have different branch names, paths, and feature flags. Your sync script must read local config before applying changes, not blindly overwrite.