# Automate your plugin updates

It's important for the health of your Grafana plugin to keep its tooling up to date. Doing so, however, can be a laborious task. To help solve this, `create-plugin` provides the `update` command to help you automate tooling updates, including:

* **Configuration file changes** to take advantage of updates in Grafana, development tooling, and create-plugin.
* **Dependency updates** to navigate major version bumps in development tooling.
* **Code refactors** to align with changes to configuration files or major dependency updates.

## Update your plugin[​](#update-your-plugin "Direct link to Update your plugin")

Git branch status

Create a Git branch before proceeding. If there are uncommitted changes, stash or commit them first otherwise the update command will exit early.

To update your plugin, run:

* npm
* Yarn
* pnpm

```shell
npx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update

```

```shell
yarn dlx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update

```

```shell
pnpm dlx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update

```

After the update is finished, run your development and build scripts to validate your plugin environment is still operating as expected.

### Options and flags[​](#options-and-flags "Direct link to Options and flags")

#### `--commit`[​](#--commit "Direct link to --commit")

The commit flag will commit the changes to the current branch on each successful migration. This is useful for debugging and reviewing changes made by the update command.

* npm
* Yarn
* pnpm

```shell
npx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update --commit

```

```shell
yarn dlx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update --commit

```

```shell
pnpm dlx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update --commit

```

#### `--force`[​](#--force "Direct link to --force")

The force flag can be used to bypass all safety checks related to uncommitted changes. Use with discretion.

* npm
* Yarn
* pnpm

```shell
npx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update --force

```

```shell
yarn dlx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update --force

```

```shell
pnpm dlx @grafana/create-plugin@latest update --force

```

### What happens when you update[​](#what-happens-when-you-update "Direct link to What happens when you update")

The update command applies a series of changes, known as migrations, to your plugin to align it with the latest `create-plugin` standards.

When run, it:

* Detects the current create-plugin version.
* Determines which migrations need to run to bring your plugin up to date.
* Runs each migration sequentially.

As each migration runs, its name and description are output to the terminal, along with a list of any files the migration has changed. If a migration updates any dependencies, it will also install and update any lock files.

If you pass the `--commit` flag, after each migration finishes it adds a Git commit to the current branch with the name of the migration.

## Automate updates via CI[​](#automate-updates-via-ci "Direct link to Automate updates via CI")

To make it even easier to keep your plugin up to date, use the provided GitHub workflow that runs the update command and automatically opens a PR if there are any changes. Follow [these steps](https://grafana.com/developers/plugin-tools/set-up/set-up-github.md#the-create-plugin-update-workflow) to enable it in your repository.

## Automate dependency updates[​](#automate-dependency-updates "Direct link to Automate dependency updates")

`create-plugin` will only update dependencies if they are required for other changes to function correctly. Besides running the update command regularly, use [dependabot](https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/getting-started/dependabot-quickstart-guide) or [renovatebot](https://docs.renovatebot.com/) to keep all dependencies up to date.

## Get help[​](#get-help "Direct link to Get help")

If you experience issues, [open a bug report](https://github.com/grafana/plugin-tools/issues/new?template=bug_report.yml).