Quick Introduction to Developing sf Plugins

Salesforce CLI is a bundle of two executables: sf and sfdx. We first launched sfdx to develop and test your apps more easily on the Salesforce Platform. With sf, we're bringing together a set of cross-cloud commands that streamline how you build and deploy across all Salesforce.

A Salesforce plugin is a group of commands. For example, the plugin-deploy-retrieve plugin provides commands to deploy and retrieve metadata to and from an org. Salesforce CLI is itself a plugin.

So why create your own plugin? The Salesforce CLI core plugins provide commands and functionality to meet common needs that customers and partners have. But your team probably has specific needs. That’s why Salesforce CLI is extensible. Even at Salesforce, different teams have different requirements. Salesforce teams create plug-ins, Salesforce employees create plug-ins as side projects, and Trailblazers in the Salesforce community create and share plug-ins.

See Conceptual Overview of Salesforce CLI for more information.