2026.2 is coming — time to check your plugin compatibility

Hey everyone,
JetBrains IDE 2026.2 releases start rolling out on July 16. Not all products will ship on the same day, we will probably have releases during that and next week, but that’s the earliest date you may see them arrive. Now is a good time to make sure your plugin is ready. All APIs are final, no changes from our side besides Critical things blocking the release.

We kindly suggest that you adjust the compatibility range to enable current users to continue enjoying the functionalities of your plugin without any interruptions. Moreover, updating the compatibility settings will also make your plugin discoverable to new users who are exploring the latest version of our IDE.

How to prepare

The simplest approach — and our recommended default — is to drop untilBuild from your build.gradle.kts altogether. When no until-build attribute is specified, your plugin will be compatible with all future builds. You can always restrict it later through the Marketplace versions control if needed.
If you prefer to keep an explicit upper bound, expand it to 262.* or even 263.*.

Try building against 2026.2 EAP

Please do not forget to update IntelliJ Platform Gradle Plugin, the most recent version is 2.18.0.

You can test your plugin right now using the EAP snapshot:

dependencies {
    intellijPlatform {
        intellijIdea("262.8665.176") // RC build of IntelliJ IDEA
    }
}

Once you upload a new version compatible with 2026.2, please check Plugin Verifier results on the Marketplace!

JCEF Compatibility

If your plugin depends on the built-in Web Browser JCEF, you now need to add an explicit dependency to this plugin: <depends>com.intellij.modules.jcef</depends> or if you use modular/v2 build you need <module name="intellij.platform.ui.jcef"/>. Do not forget to include it as a build dependency:

bundledPlugin("intellij.platform.ui.jcef")

Important migration note: It is safe to depend on com.intellij.modules.jcef since 2025.3.1 builds, where this alias has been introduced. Having this dependency your plugins may still be compatible with 2025.3.1+ builds. Unfortunately, it is not available earlier. If you need a bigger support span you can only introduce separate versions for pre-2025.3 releases and after releases.

Known issue: JCEF does not load in useInstaller = false builds at the moment, as they use SDK archive without native components.

VFS Async Write Behavior

The IntelliJ Platform can now update the VFS first and finish the disk write in the background a bit later. Code that reads the file through IntelliJ Platform file APIs still sees the new content immediately. Code that reads the same file through Path, File, Files.*, or an external process may need an explicit flush before the hand-off.
We published a short guide about a VFS behavior change that may affect some plugins: https://blog.jetbrains.com/platform/2026/06/async-vfs-content-writes-what-plugin-authors-need-to-know/

Help us find API problems

If you run into broken or missing APIs while testing against 2026.2, please let us know. Your reports make the platform better for everyone.

Thank you for everything you build for the JetBrains ecosystem. Wishing you fewer bugs and more users this release season!

Hi,

Has the minimum Java version for 2026.2 Plugin Development changed to 25?

We’ve been seeing an issue in CI since 2026.2 EAP, but now it’s been released, we’re seeing issues with JUST IntelliJ 2026.2 (2025.3.6, 2026.1.4 works)

We use JDK 21.

We can’t test against 2026.2, as we see this:

We’re seeing:

  bad class file: /home/runner/.gradle/caches/9.6.1/transforms/9050599eb1c12391ac1caf3cbe256b29/transformed/idea-2026.2/lib/intellij.platform.indexing.jar(/com/intellij/psi/search/FilenameIndex.class)
    class file has wrong version 69.0, should be 65.0
    Please remove or make sure it appears in the correct subdirectory of the classpath.
Error: /home/runner/work/intellij-elixir/intellij-elixir/src/org/elixir_lang/console/FileReferenceFilter.java:25: error: cannot find symbol
public final class FileReferenceFilter implements Filter {
                                                  ^
  symbol: class Filter

So, has the minimum JDK version changed to 25? I can’t see this on Build Number Ranges | IntelliJ Platform Plugin SDK (or Setting Up a Development Environment | IntelliJ Platform Plugin SDK or Notable Changes in IntelliJ Platform and Plugins API 2026.* | IntelliJ Platform Plugin SDK or Incompatible Changes in IntelliJ Platform and Plugins API 2026.* | IntelliJ Platform Plugin SDK).

Confused by this.

See Support 2026.2 (CI failure) · KronicDeth/intellij-elixir@a45d8ce · GitHub

IntelliJ IDEs 2026.2 are built with Java 25, so in order to build with it you also need source/target 25. You can continue building with 2026.1 to support older releases

Please never build with newer SDK if you target older releases. You can build with 2026.1 and your code will be 2026.2 compatible still at runtime

1 Like

Is there a way to subscribe to something for these kind of announcements? I’ve been watching the incompatible changes and notable changes, and couldn’t see anything anywhere mentioned about this change.

You are totally right to expect it in documentation, we have updated it a bit late this time

Here is a an expanded roundup of recent IntelliJ Platform SDK updates.

Important build change

  • Java 25
    IntelliJ IDEs 2026.2 are built with Java 25.

Documentation updates

Migration notes

API and model changes

If you maintain a plugin, the Java 25 build change, migration notes, and API updates are the items most likely to require action. The documentation updates are also worth bookmarking for error handling, UI feedback, integration testing, and VFS behaviour.