Creating Packages

The Fast Way: Automated Publishing

The easiest way to publish a MATLAB package is to run tbxmanager publish from your package directory. Alternatively, submit via the registry issue form. See the Quick Start for a full guide.

With the publish action, you only maintain tbxmanager.json in your repo — the action handles archive building, SHA256 hashing, and registry submission automatically.

Package Metadata

Run tbxmanager init in your project directory to generate the metadata file, then edit it:

>> tbxmanager init
Created tbxmanager.json

The generated tbxmanager.json looks like this (customize the fields for your package):

{
  "name": "my-toolbox",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "A useful MATLAB toolbox",
  "homepage": "https://github.com/you/my-toolbox",
  "license": "MIT",
  "authors": ["Your Name <your@email.com>"],
  "matlab": ">=R2022a",
  "dependencies": {
    "some-other-pkg": ">=2.0"
  },
  "platforms": {
    "all": "https://github.com/you/my-toolbox/releases/download/v1.0.0/my-toolbox-all.zip"
  }
}

Tip

You can also create tbxmanager.json manually if you don't have tbxmanager installed yet.

Fields

Field	Required	Description
name	Yes	Lowercase, alphanumeric, hyphens, underscores
version	Yes	Semver: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH
description	Yes	Short description (max 200 chars)
platforms	Yes	At least one platform with download URL
homepage	No	Project URL
license	No	SPDX identifier (MIT, GPL-3.0, BSD-3-Clause, etc.)
authors	No	List of "Name <email>" strings
matlab	No	MATLAB version constraint (e.g., >=R2022a)
dependencies	No	Map of package names to version constraints
publish	No	Publishing config (see below)

Platforms

Platform	Description
all	Pure MATLAB code (no MEX files)
win64	Windows 64-bit
maci64	macOS Intel
maca64	macOS Apple Silicon
glnxa64	Linux 64-bit

Use all if your package is pure MATLAB. Provide platform-specific archives if you include MEX files.

Publish Configuration

Optional section for the automated publish action:

{
  "publish": {
    "exclude": [".git", ".github", "tests", "docs", "benchmarks"],
    "archive_dir": "dist"
  }
}

Field	Default	Description
exclude	.git, .github, tests, docs, tbxmanager.json	Patterns to exclude from auto-built archives
archive_dir	dist	Directory for pre-built platform archives

Versioning

Follow Semantic Versioning:

• MAJOR: Breaking changes
• MINOR: New features, backward compatible
• PATCH: Bug fixes

Deprecation and Yanking

Deprecating a Package

To mark an entire package as deprecated, add a "deprecated" field to the registry entry:

{
  "name": "old-toolbox",
  "deprecated": "Use new-toolbox instead",
  ...
}

Users will see a warning during install, search, and info but can still install the package.

Yanking a Version

To mark a specific version as having a critical issue:

{
  "versions": {
    "1.0.0": {
      "yanked": "Critical bug in dependency resolution",
      ...
    }
  }
}

Yanked versions are skipped by the resolver. Users can still install them with an explicit pin: tbxmanager install pkg@==1.0.0.

Submit deprecation or yank changes as a PR to the registry.

---

Advanced: Manual Submission

If you prefer not to use the automated publish action, you can submit packages manually.

Building Archives

Create a zip archive containing your package files:

# For pure MATLAB packages
cd my-toolbox
zip -r ../my-toolbox-all.zip . -x '.git/*' -x '.github/*' -x 'tbxmanager.json'

# For platform-specific packages (with MEX files)
zip -r ../my-toolbox-maci64.zip . -x '.git/*' -x '*.mexw64' -x '*.mexa64'

Hosting on GitHub Releases

1. Tag your release: git tag v1.0.0 && git push --tags
2. Go to your repo's Releases page
3. Create a new release from the tag
4. Upload your archive(s)
5. Use the release asset URLs in your registry submission

Computing SHA256

The registry requires SHA256 hashes for integrity verification:

macOSLinuxWindows (PowerShell)

shasum -a 256 my-toolbox-all.zip

sha256sum my-toolbox-all.zip

Get-FileHash my-toolbox-all.zip -Algorithm SHA256

Tip

Use the converter script to generate the registry format from your tbxmanager.json:

python scripts/convert_to_registry.py \
  --input tbxmanager.json \
  --output packages/my-toolbox/package.json \
  --sha256 all=abc123... \
  --released 2026-03-28

Submitting to the Registry

1. Fork MarekWadinger/tbxmanager-registry
2. Create packages/my-toolbox/package.json:

{
  "name": "my-toolbox",
  "description": "A useful MATLAB toolbox",
  "homepage": "https://github.com/you/my-toolbox",
  "license": "MIT",
  "authors": ["Your Name <your@email.com>"],
  "versions": {
    "1.0.0": {
      "matlab": ">=R2022a",
      "dependencies": {},
      "platforms": {
        "all": {
          "url": "https://github.com/you/my-toolbox/releases/download/v1.0.0/my-toolbox-all.zip",
          "sha256": "your-sha256-hash-here"
        }
      },
      "released": "2026-03-25"
    }
  }
}

1. Open a pull request
2. CI automatically validates your submission
3. Once merged, the package appears in the registry

Updating (Manual)

To add a new version, edit your package.json in the registry with a new version entry and open a PR.