Now you can configure any of Netlify’s Build Plugins so they run only in specific deploy contexts!

As a quick refresher: deploy contexts refer to the different types of deploys of your site on Netlify, including production deploys to your primary site URL, Deploy Previews, and branch deploys built from a specific branch of your site repository. In your netlify.toml file, you can specify different build settings for different contexts. For example, you may want separate build configurations for staging vs. production environments.

Netlify Build Plugins allow you to extend and customize your build processes with a combination of tools from a library of services. For example, you could use a build plugin to fail the build if it doesn’t meet accessibility requirements or kick off a search indexing process with Algolia after every successful deploy.

By default, installed plugins run in all deploy contexts. Until now, there was no way to tell certain plugins to run only in some contexts or to apply context-specific plugin settings.

Today, we’re excited to announce you can now define the context where a plugin should run, and even further configure the plugin based on specific contexts.

In order to configure contexts, you will need to edit your netlify.toml file.

You can choose to enable or disable a plugin only in specific contexts, like so:

[[context.production.plugins]]
package = "@netlify/plugin-sitemap"

You can also configure a plugin to run with different inputs depending on the context:

[[plugins]]
package = "netlify-plugin-cypress"
  [plugins.inputs]
  record = true

[[context.deploy-preview.plugins]]
package = "netlify-plugin-cypress"
  [context.deploy-preview.plugins.inputs]
  record = false

Example use cases for context-specific plugins

Thinking about switching up your plugins based on different contexts? Here are some ideas for example use cases:

• Save time while you’re working by running certain plugins, like Image Optim or Sitemap, only when you’re ready to deploy to production.
• Save time when you’re ready to ship by moving some testing plugins, like the A11y plugin, to run checks only on your deploy previews but not when you’re pushing to prod.
• Reduce noise from notifications while you work by running plugins like Pushover notification only when you’re deploying to production and not every time a PR is made.
• Configure an end-to-end testing plugin like Cypress so that it runs after the deploy for previews, but before the deploy for production. That way, you get full E2E experience during development and test, but don't risk having a failing production build go live.

A few details to note

Plugins that are installed by clicking the Install button in the Netlify UI run in all contexts. To run a plugin only in a specific context, configure it in your netlify.toml file under that context only, and make sure the plugin is not installed in the UI.

On the other hand, changes to plugin inputs will take precedence and work as set in the netlify.toml file, even if the plugin was installed via the web app UI.

Try context-specific plugins today!

Go browse the Netlify plugin directory to see the full list of available plugins. Then, head over to the docs to learn how to configure your plugins by context.

We’re so glad to make this highly-requested enhancement available to all Netlify customers on all plans today. Keep the feedback coming!