You can use a Makefile and a series of Vim commands to automatically update your project's vimball on changes, for a sort of poor-man Vim automated build. The Makefile should look something like this: PLUGIN = specky SOURCE = syntax/rdoc.vim SOURCE += syntax/specrun.vim SOURCE += doc/specky.txt SOURCE += plugin/specky.vim ${PLUGIN}.vba: ${SOURCE} vim --cmd 'let g:plugin_name="${PLUGIN}"' -s build.vim install: rsync -Rv ${SOURCE} ${HOME}/.vim/ clean: rm ${PLUGIN}.vba Include each file that is part of your plugin as a SOURCE line. (This example is from the specky plugin.)