Wiring and manifests

To add a plugin you create a directory under plugins/ and rerun the generator. There is no central list of plugins to edit, because the generator writes it.

The manifest

Every plugin directory holds a plugin.json describing itself:

{
  "id": "webhooks",
  "name": "Webhooks",
  "backend": "github.com/you/myapp/plugins/webhooks",
  "frontend": "@myapp/plugin-webhooks"
}

Field	Meaning
id	Lowercase, and must match the directory name
name	The human readable name
backend	The plugin’s Go import path
frontend	The plugin’s UI module, if it has one
graphql	Set to true to extend the GraphQL API

backend and frontend are both optional on their own, but a plugin needs at least one of them.

The generator

Your application carries a small command of its own: one wire.Config value and one call.

package main

import "github.com/gopherium/pluginkit/wire"

var config = wire.Config{
  SDKImport:    "github.com/you/myapp/sdk",
  FrontendSDK:  "@myapp/frontend-sdk",
  GoWiringPath: "cmd/myapp/plugins_gen.go",
  TSWiringPath: "frontend/src/plugins/index.ts",
  License:      "Apache-2.0",
}

func main() {
  if err := wire.Run(".", config); err != nil {
    panic(err)
  }
}

Run reads every manifest and writes two files: one Go, one TypeScript. License sets the SPDX header on both. Add TSLicense when your frontend ships under a different license than your backend, and it applies to the TypeScript file only. Every field is documented on pkg.go.dev.

What each plugin must provide

The generator writes calls, and your compiler checks that the plugins answer them.

The generated Go file calls a function in each backend package:

func Register(deps sdk.Deps) (*Plugin, error)

The returned value has to satisfy sdk.Plugin. Every result is gathered into a generated registerPlugins function.

The generated TypeScript file imports an export named plugin from each frontend module and collects them into a typed array.

Closing the loop

Your server builds a Deps, passes it to the generated registerPlugins, and gives the result to the host:

registered, err := registerPlugins(sdk.Deps{DatabaseURL: url, Getenv: os.Getenv})
if err != nil {
  return err
}
host := pluginkit.NewHost(registered...)