Adding Custom Action to Feature, where goes the definition?

Question

So i made an application page to configure a timer job and need to add a custom action to place a link for this aspx in the Site Settings and found something like:

<CustomAction
  ID="<guid>"
  GrouId = "Customization"
  Location = "Microsoft.SharePoint.SiteSettings"
  Title = "titleGoesHere"
  Rights = "FullMask"
  Sequence = "42">
   <UrlAction Url="_layouts/<stuff>.aspx" />
  </CustomAction>

so far so good but all the guides i found started with either a new solution altogether or at least a new Feature but i'd like to add the custom action to the feature which is already existing because it would be silly to have "feature A" and "feature A_Config".

so i tried adding the custom action element to the feature template.xml like:

<?xml ...>
<Feature ...>
  <CustomAction ...>
    <UrlAction ...>
  </CustomAction>
</Feature>

which seems kinda logical but i got errors every time i tried to deploy the solution because reasons, so where would i put the custom action definition?

most sites suggested to put the custom action in some elements.xml but i can't add an elements.xml to the respective feature just resources.

i suspect that i'll have to add a new module to the solution, but all this just to add a link on a site? that would seem rather nonsensical even for a microsoft product.

Answer 1

To add a custom action to an existing feature:

1. Add a new "Empty Element" to your project (there's no option to directly create a custom action element)
2. Add manually all the Custom Action XML declaration in it (your first piece of code in your question)
3. Double-click your feature. You should see a double-panel window. In the left pane, you see existing elements in your solution. In the right pane, are elements included in your feature. Select the Custom Action element in the left and move it to the right panel.