How to run `nextflow plugin <id>:command` against a locally-installed development plugin

[rcannood]

Bug report

When developing a Nextflow plugin that implements PluginExecAware, there is no supported way to invoke nextflow plugin <id>:command against a locally-built development version. Every combination of flags either attempts to download from the registry (which may not have the development version) or fails with a "Cannot find target plugin" error even though the plugin is already installed locally.

Expected behavior and actual behavior

When developing a nextflow plugin, I expect to be able to pass a plugin version so that I can test a local development version before publishing. What I would expect to happen:

git clone https://github.com/rcannood/test-nf-plugin-commands
cd test-nf-plugin-commands
make assemble install
# ~/.nextflow/plugins/test-nf-plugin-commands-0.1.0/ now exists

$ nextflow plugin test-nf-plugin-commands@0.1.0:hello
Hello from test-nf-plugin-commands:hello!

Steps to reproduce the problem

A self-contained reproduction is available at https://github.com/rcannood/test-nf-plugin-commands.

The repository was scaffolded from nf-plugin-template using NXF_VER=26.04.0 nextflow plugin create. The only change from the template is adding PluginExecAware to the plugin class (see this commit).

git clone https://github.com/rcannood/test-nf-plugin-commands
cd test-nf-plugin-commands
make assemble install
# ~/.nextflow/plugins/test-nf-plugin-commands-0.1.0/ now exists

Then try any of the following:

Attempt 1: no version, no offline flag:

$ nextflow plugin test-nf-plugin-commands:hello
ERROR ~ Cannot find latest version of test-nf-plugin-commands plugin

Attempt 2: NXF_OFFLINE=true, no version:

$ NXF_OFFLINE=true nextflow plugin test-nf-plugin-commands:hello
ERROR ~ Cannot find version for test-nf-plugin-commands plugin -- plugin versions MUST be specified in offline mode

Attempt 3: NXF_OFFLINE=true, version specified:

$ NXF_OFFLINE=true nextflow plugin test-nf-plugin-commands@0.1.0:hello
Cannot find target plugin: test-nf-plugin-commands@0.1.0
$ NXF_OFFLINE=true nextflow plugin test-nf-plugin-commands-0.1.0:hello
Cannot find target plugin: test-nf-plugin-commands-0.1.0

All three attempts fail on both Nextflow 25.10.4 and 26.04.0.

Program output

(Copy and paste the output produced by the failing execution. Please highlight it as a code block. Whenever possible upload the .nextflow.log file.)

Environment

• Nextflow version: tested with 26.04.0 and 25.10.4
• Java version: 21
• Operating system: Linux
• Bash version: 5.2.37(1)

Additional context

(Add any other context about the problem here)