Retire a plugin from a marketplace

When a published plugin becomes deprecated or no longer fits your marketplace, you can retire it through a guided, PR-governed flow. Packmind tracks the lifecycle so you and your team always know which plugins are live, which are pending removal, and which have already been removed.

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Overview

Retiring a plugin mirrors how you published it:

1. You mark the plugin for removal from the Packmind app.
2. Packmind automatically opens (or amends) the deletion pull request in the marketplace repository on your behalf — the same governed flow used to publish.
3. You review and merge that pull request.
4. Once the pull request is merged, Packmind confirms the removal and updates the plugin status to Removed.

While the deletion pull request is in flight, the plugin appears as To be removed in the marketplace details view, so the whole team can see what’s pending.

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Mark a plugin for removal

1. Navigate to Marketplaces in your organization.
2. Open the marketplace that hosts the plugin you want to retire.
3. In the Distributions list, find the row for the plugin.
4. Click the Remove action on that row.
5. Confirm the removal in the dialog.

The plugin status changes to To be removed, and Packmind immediately opens the deletion pull request on the marketplace repository.

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Review and merge the deletion pull request

Marking a plugin for removal automatically opens (or amends) the Packmind sync pull request on the marketplace repository — the same rolling pull request Packmind uses to publish. The pull request removes the plugin’s entry from the marketplace descriptor and deletes its rendered files. You don’t need to run any CLI command. To finish the retirement:

1. Open the Packmind sync pull request in the marketplace repository.
2. Review the removal alongside any other pending Packmind changes.
3. Merge the pull request against the marketplace’s default branch.

Once the pull request is merged, the next marketplace reconciliation run detects that the plugin is gone from the marketplace descriptor and transitions the distribution to Removed.

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Cancel a pending removal

If the deletion pull request is abandoned or you change your mind, you can revert the plugin back to its live state at any time before reconciliation completes:

1. Open the marketplace details view.
2. Locate the distribution showing the To be removed badge.
3. Click Cancel removal on the row.
4. Confirm the action.

The plugin returns to its previous Published state in Packmind. If the deletion pull request had already been opened, make sure the plugin’s removal is not merged — or re-publish the plugin afterwards to restore it on the marketplace.

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Retire a plugin when deleting its Packmind package

When you delete a Packmind package that is already published to one or more marketplaces, Packmind automatically marks every live distribution of that package as To be removed across all affected marketplaces and opens the deletion pull request on each one. You don’t need to visit each marketplace one by one. You still need to finish each retirement by reviewing and merging the deletion pull request in every affected marketplace, as described above.

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Drift detection

Packmind regularly checks each marketplace against what it expects to find there. If a plugin that Packmind considers Published disappears from a marketplace without going through the retirement flow above, the marketplace details view surfaces a Drift detected indicator listing the affected plugin slugs. Drift usually means someone deleted a plugin directly in the marketplace repository, bypassing Packmind. To resolve it:

• If the deletion was intentional, mark the plugin for removal in Packmind to align the lifecycle.
• If the deletion was a mistake, restore the plugin in the marketplace repository.

A plugin that is currently in To be removed state never triggers drift — Packmind knows the deletion is expected and waits for the deletion pull request to be merged.

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Plugin statuses at a glance

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Related Documentation

• Distribute artifacts — publish packages to repositories and marketplaces
• Git repository connection — connect the marketplace repository to Packmind
• Packmind CLI — reference for the packmind-cli plugins delete command, which removes a rendered plugin from a local workspace clone