Plugin dependencies

This guide shows you how to build on top of other Hardhat plugins by using them as dependencies in your plugin.

Using another plugin as a dependency

To use another plugin as a dependency, you need to:

1. Declare it as a peerDependency and devDependency in your package.json file
2. Declare any peer dependencies of that plugin as peer and dev dependencies in your own package.json file
3. Add it to the dependencies field of your HardhatPlugin object

Here’s how a plugin that depends on another-plugin would look:

import type { HardhatPlugin } from "hardhat/types/plugins";

import "./type-extensions.js";

const plugin: HardhatPlugin = {
  id: "hardhat-my-plugin",
  dependencies: () => [import("another-plugin")],
  // ...
};

export default plugin;

When you declare a plugin as a dependency, its Hook Handlers, Tasks, and Global Options will be loaded before your plugin’s.

Learn more

To learn more about why and how to use peerDependencies in Hardhat plugins, read the Peer dependencies in Hardhat 3 plugins explanation.

To learn more about how the plugin dependencies are loaded, read the Lifecycle of the components of a Hardhat 3 plugin explanation.