/orca-plugin-authoring

name: orca-plugin-authoring
description: >-
  Build, debug, test, and publish Orca plugins end to end: app, terminal, and icon themes,
  syntaxes, language packs, custom editors, HTML or TSX components sidebar panels, palette
  commands and shortcuts, and Node worker commands that react to workspace and agent events.
  Use when the user asks to make, change, fix, or ship an Orca plugin, to add a panel,
  command, theme, editor, or language to Orca, or works in a folder with an orca-plugin.json.
  Use `orca-cli` only to list, enable, or disable plugins that are already installed.

Orca Plugin Authoring

This discovery stub loads the version-matched guide from the Orca executable used for this session.

Resolve the CLI for this session

Choose the executable once and reuse it for every later command:

• If the `ORCA_CLI_COMMAND` environment variable is set, use its value. Orca exports this

for managed WSL sessions.

• Otherwise, in a dev checkout whose session exposes `ORCA_DEV_REPO_ROOT`, use `orca-dev`.
• Otherwise, on Linux outside an Orca-managed terminal, use `orca-ide`. Never run bare

`orca` there — outside Orca's terminals it normally resolves to the GNOME Orca screen reader (`/usr/bin/orca`) and starts speech on the user's machine.

• Otherwise, use `orca`.

Below, `ORCA` is a placeholder for the executable you resolved. Substitute it before running anything; do not create a shell variable or run `ORCA` literally. This works the same way in POSIX shells, PowerShell, and cmd.exe.

If the selected executable cannot run, report its exact error and stop. Do not fall through to another executable, which could silently target a different Orca build.

Load the version-matched guide before running Orca commands

ORCA skills get orca-plugin-authoring

Prefer `--json`. Use the selected executable's `--help` for commands or flags the guide does not cover. A `runtime_unavailable` error is usually transient while Orca is busy or restarting: wait a few seconds and retry the command. Before retrying a command that changes something, check whether it already took effect, and reuse any request ID the error names. `ORCA open` can bring Orca's window to the front over the user's work, so never run it to retry a failed command. Run it only when the user asks, or when Orca is really not running: `ORCA status --json` reports `result.app.running: false`, or every command, `ORCA status` included, still cannot connect after about 30 seconds of retries. If a command fails with `runtime_access_denied`, your sandbox blocked the connection: re-run it with escalated permissions, and do not run `ORCA open` or restart Orca. If `skills get` is unknown, explain that updating Orca restores the guide; use `--help` for read-only discovery and do not guess unsupported commands.