Bolt UXP 1.3 and Bolt Express 1.2 Bring Faster, More Powerful Plugin Development to Adobe Apps
Hyper Brew's open source Bolt frameworks just got easier to debug, faster to reload, and more capable across Premiere, Photoshop, InDesign, and Adobe Express.
Justin Taylor is a 2026 Adobe Developer Champion and founder of Hyper Brew, building custom automation plugins for creative teams and open source frameworks for Adobe plugin developers.
You want to start a new plugin project for an Adobe app. You download an example from GitHub, start editing the code, and soon find yourself tweaking config files and build settings for hours just to get a basic "hello world" plugin running, before you can start building what you actually want.
The Bolt frameworks, including Bolt UXP and Bolt Express, solve that problem.
What's new right now
If you already use Bolt UXP or Bolt Express, here is what changes for you today:
- Bolt UXP 1.3 adds asynchronous command execution, VS Code and UXP Developer Tool debugger support, 30+ helper functions for Premiere UXP, a global error handler, CCX install and uninstall scripts, accurate live UI theme colors, a standalone helper function library, and initial readiness for Media Encoder and After Effects.
- Bolt Express 1.2 adds a custom Express connector for near instant sandbox reloading, full dev mode support in all Chromium browsers, and two-way type-safe event dispatching between the sandbox and the frontend.
Update your existing Bolt UXP or Bolt Express project, or start a new one, at the links in each section below.
The Bolt frameworks: open source at Hyper Brew
The Bolt projects are open source frameworks built by Hyper Brew to streamline plugin development from start to finish, across multiple host apps. Today, the available frameworks are:
- Bolt CEP: for Adobe CEP Extensions for Creative Cloud apps
- Bolt UXP: for Adobe UXP Plugins for Creative Cloud apps
- Bolt Express: for Adobe Express Add-ons
- Bolt Figma: for Figma Plugins
Each framework gives you a pre-configured setup so you can get to real development faster and spend less time on configuration.
Who Bolt frameworks are for
Bolt frameworks are for developers who want a modern, reliable development stack without hand-rolling their own config files. All of them run on a modern JavaScript frontend stack, with backends that vary by platform, so you get modern UI frameworks like React, Svelte, or Vue combined with the safety of TypeScript across plugin environments.
Every Bolt framework is free and open source, for commercial and personal projects alike.
How Bolt frameworks differ from Adobe's or Figma's own plugin templates
Most plugin template samples get you started, then leave you on your own once you move past the example stage. Bolt frameworks stay with you through the whole lifecycle:
- To start, configuration is handled through CLI prompts in the console.
- To develop, live development scripts give you fast hot reloading, cutting iteration time.
- To deliver, build scripts package your plugin for distribution.
Each framework also includes platform-specific features and helper functions that solve common problems you'd otherwise hit on your own.
Are Bolt frameworks configurable, or a black box?
Every Bolt framework is built on the Vite JavaScript bundler, so it's fully customizable. The most common settings are abstracted into simple config files per framework (for example, uxp.config.ts for Bolt UXP or express.config.ts for Bolt Express), but you can still reach every vanilla API method and configuration option of the underlying app whenever you need to.
Who's using Bolt frameworks
Bolt frameworks are in use today by developers ranging from Fortune 500 companies, major sports leagues, and film production studios to solo plugin developers. A few examples:
- Overlord 2 by Battle Axe, using Bolt UXP, Bolt CEP, and Bolt Figma
- Brevidy by Plugin Play, using Bolt CEP
- Webcam by Hyper Brew, using Bolt CEP and Bolt Express
Bolt UXP 1.3
Made possible by the Adobe Fund for Design 2026, this update brings several quality of life improvements to UXP plugin development for Premiere, Photoshop, InDesign, and more apps to come.
Asynchronous command line execution. Bolt UXP now ships an asynchronous exec() alongside the existing execSync(), so you can call CLI commands that take longer to run without freezing your app or plugin's UI. That opens up more workflows involving system commands and external binaries like FFmpeg, OpenCV, and licensing frameworks.
Debugger support for VS Code and UDT. Bolt UXP now works with the VS Code UXP Debugger (built by Jarda) and the native UXP Developer Tool, so you get line by line debugging into your TypeScript source.
30+ helper functions for Premiere UXP. The UXP API is more complex than ExtendScript was, which makes migrating Premiere CEP extensions to UXP plugins a real challenge. This update ships 30+ helper functions that simplify common tasks and handle edge cases for developers making that move.
Global error handler. UXP still doesn't have a native global error handler, so Bolt UXP now ships one. You can route errors to logging or tracking services, and safely run or manually throw errors to the handler.
CCX install and uninstall scripts. Bolt UXP now includes scripts for quickly installing and uninstalling your built CCX files with UPIA, so you can quickly test your plugin in a production environment.
Live, accurate UI theme colors. Bolt UXP now reflects accurate theme colors across every OS, app, and appearance mode, in both vanilla and WebView UIs.
A standalone helper function module. The helper functions ship as their own npm module, bolt-uxp-utils, so you can use them with or without Bolt UXP. It already includes the new Premiere UXP helpers and Photoshop UXP helpers, with more planned.
Media Encoder and After Effects support. Bolt UXP is ready for Media Encoder and After Effects as soon as Adobe makes the relevant UXP APIs public.
[GAP: public API timeline] The article notes Media Encoder and After Effects support is "pending public API release from Adobe" but doesn't say when that's expected. Confirm whether there's a rough timeframe worth sharing, or whether this should stay open ended.
Get started with Bolt UXP for free: hyperbrew.co/bolt-uxp
Bolt Express 1.2
This update brings several quality of life improvements to Adobe Express add-on development.
Faster sandbox reloading. Previously, changes to sandbox code took several seconds to reflect through the Adobe connector. Bolt Express now ships a custom Express connector, making sandbox and frontend updates near instant.
Full browser support in dev mode. Chromium-based browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Brave weren't supported in dev mode before. Bolt Express's custom connector includes its own SSL system, so dev mode and build mode now both work across all browsers.
Two-way event dispatching. Bolt Express previously offered type safety only for frontend-to-sandbox messaging. It now adds type safety for sandbox-to-frontend messaging too, so listening for events in Adobe Express is fully type-checked in both directions.
Get started with Bolt Express for free: hyperbrew.co/bolt-express
Support and what's next
For free support on either framework, join the Hyper Brew Discord, where over 600 developers share tips and tricks for Adobe plugin development: hyperbrew.co/discord
For priority support, book a free discovery call with Hyper Brew: hyperbrew.co/booking
Both Bolt UXP and Bolt Express are open source, and the Hyper Brew team welcomes requests, suggestions, and contributions. Start a discussion on the Hyper Brew Discord, or open a feature request or contribution on the Bolt UXP or Bolt Express GitHub repos. Every discussion, request, and contribution makes these projects better for the whole development community.