Writing a Kotlin Backend IR Compiler Plugin¶

Backend IR is a new, unified way of writing a compiler plugin. Currently IR is in a beta stage, and will be the default backend in Kotlin 1.5. Compared to a bare compiler plugin written for JVM, Backend IR has some benefits:

• easier to write (a lot!)
• not platform dependant
• works well with other compiler plugins

Get started¶

You need to enable IR so far: kotlinc argument -Xuse-ir.

Add kotlin compiler plugin library:

// gradle
dependencies {
    // ...
    compileOnly("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-compiler-embeddable:$kotlinVersion")
}

The entrypoint for all kotlin compiler plugin is CommandLineProcessor and ComponentRegistrar.

class MyCommandLineProcessor : CommandLineProcessor {
    override val pluginId = "com.myplugin"
    override val pluginOptions = emptyList<CliOption>()
}

class MyComponentRegistrar : ComponentRegistrar {
    override fun registerProjectComponents(project: MockProject, configuration: CompilerConfiguration) {
        println("Hello, ComponentRegistrar!")
    }
}

You need to add services for these. Go to resources di, make META-INF/services/