US Patent 9817655 Managing software assets installed in an integrated development environment

A software plugin integrated with the development environment maintains a list of independently managed assets that are installed within the development environment. The independently managed assets are provided by an entity with which the software plugin can communicate to determine whether newer versions of the assets have been released. The software plugin automatically downloads and installs the newer version of the assets with minimal, if any, user intervention. Further, the software plugin monitors the interdependencies between different assets installed within the development environment. When updating to a newer version of an asset, the software plugin identifies any conflicts that may occur with regards to the interdependencies when the asset is updated.