Building a Better Grunt Plugin

default.js

module.exports = function(grunt) {

  grunt.registerMultiTask('{%= short_name %}', 'Your task description goes here.', function() {
    // Merge task-specific and/or target-specific options with these defaults.
    var options = this.options({
      punctuation: '.',
      separator: ', '
    });

    // Iterate over all specified file groups.
    this.files.forEach(function(f) {
      // Do something to some files...

      // Print a success message.
      grunt.log.writeln('File "' + f.dest + '" created.');
    });
  });

};

dir_structure.txt

/docs
  - intro.md
  - options.md
  - license.md
/lib
  - jsHintTask.js
/tasks
  - jshint2.js
/tests
Gruntfile.js
package.json

jsHint.js

var JSHintTask = require("../lib/jsHintTask");

module.exports = JSHintTask.registerWithGrunt;

jsHintTask.js

function JSHintTask(task) {
    this.origTask = task;

    this.options = task.options(JSHintTask.Defaults);
}

JSHintTask.prototype = {
    // Get the party started.
    run: function() {

    }
};

// A static attribute holding our defaults so we can test against them.
JSHintTask.Defaults = {
    something: true
};

// Some static task information
JSHintTask.taskName = "jshint2";
JSHintTask.taskDescription = "A better jshint task";

// A static helper method for registering with Grunt
JSHintTask.registerWithGrunt = function(grunt) {

    grunt.registerMultiTask(JSHintTask.taskName, JSHintTask.taskDescription, function() {
        var task = new JSHintTask(this);

        task.run();
    });
};

module.exports = JSHintTask;

jsHintTask_spec.js

var grunt = require("grunt"),
    should = require("should"),
    _ = grunt.util._;

var JSHintTask = require("../lib/jsHintTask");

describe("JSHintTask", function() {

    var makeMockTask = function(done) {
        return {
            _taskOptions: { bad: "option" },
            filesSrc: grunt.file.expand("test/res/good*.js"),
            options: function(defs) { return _.defaults(this._taskOptions, defs); },
            async: function() {
                return done;
            }
        };
    };

    it("registers itself with grunt", function() {
        should.exist(JSHintTask.registerWithGrunt);

        JSHintTask.registerWithGrunt(grunt);

        // Check that it registered
        should.exist(grunt.task._tasks[JSHintTask.taskName]);
        grunt.task._tasks[JSHintTask.taskName].info.should.equal(JSHintTask.taskDescription);
    });

    it("loads options from a task", function() {
        var task = new JSHintTask(makeMockTask()),
            actual = task.options;

        should.exist(actual);

        actual.something.should.equal(JSHintTask.Defaults.something);
    });
});

A grunt config file example here would help.