Submitting Add-ons

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Home icon grey.png   ▶ Development ▶ Add-on development ▶ Submitting Add-ons


Submitting a Compliant Add-on to the XBMC.org Repo

After you have read the repository guidelines and made sure your addon is compliant with them, you may begin the submission process using the following steps.


Allowed submissions

We have restricted the allowed submissions of add-ons to past Kodi versions. Several reasons:

  • Kodi code improvements
  • Reduce support load for add-on developers
  • Reduce workload for repository maintainers

Below is a table of on which submissions are allowed to official Kodi repository.

Allowed add-on submissions
codename version update new
Dharma 10.x no no
Eden 11.x no no
Frodo 12.x no no
Gotham 13.x yes no
Helix 14.x yes yes


Additional feature is that we now use combined repositories. So if your add-on is Gotham/Helix compatible, you only need to send it to Gotham repository. If it's only Helix compatible you need to send it to Helix repository. This of course requires that the minimal Kodi dependencies are set accordingly.

Which repos are used
codename version repo repo repo
Dharma 10.x Dharma
Eden 11.x Eden
Frodo 12.x Frodo
Gotham 13.x Frodo Gotham
Helix 14.x Frodo Gotham Helix


The mailing list

We ask that all Add-on authors subscribe to the Add-ons Mailing List. This is done for several reasons.

  • This is where all updates and important information will be announced.
  • This way we can contact you regarding your add-ons if necessary.
  • You can see what other devs are requesting to be added so you know if possibly you need to check compatibility of the add-on you depend on.
  • You may find new and interesting add-ons this way on which you can get inspiration from or may depend on.

After you have subscribed to the Add-ons Mailing List you will be send a conformation e-mail. Be sure to accept this before you can submit to the Mailing List.

All pull requests should be sent to this list so that repository maintainers will be notified that you want to add of update your add-on. They will do a sanity check if all seems ok and you are following the Kodi guidelines for add-ons. If any issues or questions arise they will contact you through the e-mail you registered with. Once all checks out fine your add-on is added to repository and you will receive a confirmation e-mail that it is added.


Tip Tip: To un-subscribe from the mailinglist follow the same link as Add-ons Mailing List and there's the option to unsubscribe at the bottom

How to submit your add-on and subsequent updates

In order to submit your addon, you must send a request that we add or update your add-on to the Add-ons Mailing List (We call this a "pull request."). Each request will require a version bump in the addon.xml. We ask that you also keep a changelog.txt up to date so that users may easily see what has changed.

Note that .xbt files will be generated automatically for skins so you do not include this in your pull request.

There are several ways to request that we add or update your add-on. Please preface threads using the following conventions:

Type Description
[Git Pull] Submit a request that we pull from your repo. This should include a url, branch/tag/revision, and the addon to pull. HEAD is NOT a revision.
[SVN Pull] Same as [Git Pull]
[Zip Pull] By far the least used but still a valid way. Submit a link where the add-on zip can be downloaded from.

For example you can just give us the link to .zip in your dropbox account. We do not want to download it from a public download site that holds questionable content or is filled with ads.

[Patch] Sometimes you may wish to submit a patch to the author for review.

Under most circumstances we will not merge this directly, it should go to the upstream maintainer first.

After you have send it to the mailing list please keep an eye out for any reply from our repository maintainers if there are any remarks or changes needed or a simple confirmation it has been added. Do note it might take some time to process the request.

After it has been added or updated it will be available from the Kodi repository in Kodi itself, on http://addons.xbmc.org/ and on the wiki page http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Category:All_add-ons.


Note: Please locate you add-on in the root of the git repository. This to make sure we can easily pull the add-on into our repository. Example: https://github.com/XBMC-Addons/service.xbmc.versioncheck

Example e-mail

Subject:

 [Git Pull] my cool plugin

Body:

 *addon -   my.cool.plugin
 *version - 1.1.0
 *url - git://some.where.git
 *revision - a241345a
 *branch - master
 *xbmc version - helix


Note: If you want to request multiple add-ons to be added you can just do this in one e-mail as long as you provide the "Body" part each time for every add-on and every Kodi version you want it to be included to. In this case the subject field doesn't need to contain the add-on name. Do provide the "[Git Pull]" part at least.

Tip Tip: At this moment Frodo/Gotham/Helix combine all repos into one single repo list in Kodi. You only need to do a request for the minimum repo your add-on supports.

Github

Alternatively, add-on updates may be submitted directly to the Official add-on repository on Github as pull requests. In addition to the repository guidelines the following rules apply when submitting PRs on Github:

  • PR should contain one commit only.
  • Commit message should have the format "[addonid] version". Example: "[my.cool.addon] 1.0.1"

As with mailing list, only PRs from add-on author will be accepted. Patches should be submitted upstream. For an easy way to create PR from your own git repository, see HOW-TO: create add-on PRs using Git Subtree Merging.