Photoshop Setup

Real Photoshop runs use Adobe generator-core. The repository setup script prepares core and the latest published generator runtime in the same per-user cache used by the CLI.

pnpm setup

Photoshop Requirements

• Photoshop installed
• Generator enabled
• Remote Connections enabled
• A published generator runtime available in the shared CLI cache

Install Into Photoshop

Users can install the published generator runtime into a local Photoshop install without cloning this repository:

pnpm dlx @ps-generator-bridge/cli setup-photoshop

Close Photoshop before running the command. It discovers installed versions from the Windows registry, asks which version to configure, and installs the plugin into <Photoshop install dir>\Plug-ins\Generator\generator-bridge. It then parses the current user's existing MachinePrefs.psp, enables Generator and Remote Connections, and configures the Remote Connections password. Only generatorEnabled, srvE, and srvK are changed. The file is atomically replaced without creating a backup. If the settings file does not exist yet, the runtime is still installed; open Photoshop once, close it, and rerun the command with the same password option or environment variable.

Updating a managed runtime preserves its .env, logs, plugins, and other user-owned files. Replacing an unmanaged target requires interactive confirmation or --yes. Restart Photoshop after setup completes.

The CLI and runtime are versioned independently. setup and setup-photoshop resolve npm's latest runtime on every invocation and share the per-user runtime cache with run and dev. A valid cache provides an offline fallback; pass --runtime-version <version-or-tag> to pin or roll back. Adobe generator-core is cached separately and is updated only with setup-core --update or run/dev --update-core.

Configure An Explicit Preferences File

Use the standalone settings command when the MachinePrefs.psp path is already known:

ps-generator-bridge setup-generator-settings --pref "C:\path\to\MachinePrefs.psp"
ps-generator-bridge setup-generator-settings -pref "C:\path\to\MachinePrefs.psp" --password custom12

This command does not discover Photoshop, access the registry, or install a runtime. Photoshop must be closed. The path must identify an existing regular file named MachinePrefs.psp and must not be a symbolic link. It updates generatorEnabled, srvE, and srvK together without changing srvN, inserting missing fields, or creating a backup.

setup-photoshop, setup-generator-settings, run, and dev use --password, then PS_GENERATOR_REMOTE_PASSWORD, then the default password. Passwords must contain 6-128 visible, non-whitespace Unicode characters, cannot contain control characters, and cannot start with --. The CLI does not print passwords, but generator-core receives the password through its local -P process argument.

Local Development Flow

pnpm install
pnpm setup
pnpm --filter @ps-generator-bridge/generator build

The package build is used for local type checks and tests. CLI run and dev deliberately load the selected published runtime from the shared cache rather than the workspace build. That runtime is loaded through its CommonJS main.js entry; init(generator, config) constructs PsBridgeHost, registers the menu item, loads plugins, registers modules, initializes JSX polyfills, and starts the service.

Smoke Harness

Use @ps-generator-bridge/cli on Windows to verify the real Photoshop boot path:

ps-generator-bridge setup-core
ps-generator-bridge run --plugin ./my-plugin

The harness waits for /health, checks /plugins, and runs an SDK getServerInfo call. Use --plugin-cwd from a plugin project, or --plugins-dir to pass a plugin collection through directly. The CLI checks npm latest on every run; --runtime-version pins a version or tag.