I removed BlankPlugin’s Binaries and Intermediates folder, then changed a line in it’s source, output of build was
1> Target is up to date.
And it built nothing. How do I get it to build plugins? 
run UnrealBuildTool.exe via cmd with the next arguments: -projectfiles “<Path to project>/<Project name>.uproject” -game -engine
then rebuild in visual studio.
-game gave me an error
UnrealBuildTool Exception: ERROR: A valid game project was not found in the specified location ()
Leaving out -game made the command work, but it’s still not building the plugin
1>------ Build started: Project: UE4, Configuration: Development_Game x64 ------
1>Build started 3/21/2014 5:34:15 AM.
1>Build:
1> Target is up to date.
1>
1>Build succeeded.
1>
1>Time Elapsed 00:00:12.94
========== Build: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 1 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========
run rebuild from vs
I don’t want to wait 45 minutes for a one line change.
In the beta, I used a fake game module combined with the UnrealBuildTool to get it compile the plugin I was working on.
I had a precompile & postcompile batch file to switch between .uproject files.
One for compiling - one for running it.
I believe the difference was that he is also compiling out the UE4 codebase as well. When he modifies his plugin the build may be doing extra checks and then seeing that things have been modified, it attempts to build all related projects. I suggested he compile it out in a fresh UE4 Project and when he is ready for prime time he move it to the engine directory.