pluginkit

A plugin kit for creating and managing plugins in your 👑 Nim applications.

nimble install pluginkit

API reference

😍 Key Features

• Dynamic Plugin Loading - Dynamic libraries (.so, .dll, .dylib) using Nim’s std/dynlib
• Stable Plugin ABI - C-compatible manifest structure and exported entry points (plugin_get_manifest, plugin_init, plugin_deinit)
• Plugin Metadata & Manifest, including name, version, author, description, license, URL, and permissions
• Plugin Lifecycle Management with onload and onunload callbacks for initialization and cleanup
• Permission System to control plugin capabilities and API access
• Macro-based Plugin Definition
• Semantic Versioning Support
• Callbacks & Extensible Manager
• Cross-platform support for dynamic libraries on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Examples

Creating a Simple Plugin

Here is an example creating a simple plugin that logs a message when initialized:

import pluginkit

plugin helloworld, {
  name: "HelloWorld",
  author: "George Lemon",
  description: "A simple plugin that prints 'Hello, world!' to the console.",
  license: "MIT",
  url: "https://github.com/openpeeps/pluginkit",
  permissions: {permissionEmitEvents, permissionHandleRequests}
}:
  onload do:
    # This code will be executed when the plugin is loaded.
    echo "Hello, world!"
  onunload do:
    # This code will be executed when the plugin is unloaded.
    echo "Goodbye, world!"

Now, compile this plugin as a dynamic library and load it in your application using the PluginManager:

nim c --app:lib helloworld.nim

Initializing the Plugin Manager

To use the PluginManager, you can initialize it in your application like this:

import pluginkit

var manager = PluginManager(
  callbacks: PluginManagerCallbacks(
    onPluginLoaded: proc (plugin: Plugin) =
      echo plugin.getId()
      echo "Plugin loaded: ", plugin.getName, " by ", plugin.getAuthor
    ,onPluginUnloaded: proc (plugin: Plugin) =
      echo "Plugin unloaded: ", plugin.getName
    ,onPluginError: proc (plugin: Plugin, error: string) =
      echo "Error in plugin ", plugin.getName, ": ", error
))

for path in walkFiles("./plugins):
  if path.endsWith(".so") or path.endsWith(".dll") or path.endsWith(".dylib"):
     manager.load(path)

Todo

• [ ] Add support for version constraints
• [ ] Extend the permission system with more granular permissions and API exposure
• [ ] Implement plugin dependency management
• [ ] Unit tests for plugin loading, lifecycle events, and permission checks
• [ ] Example plugins demonstrating various features and use cases
• [ ] Embedding Static Assets via Supra CLI
• [ ] Plugin sandboxing and security enhancements

❤ Contributions & Support

• 🐛 Found a bug? Create a new Issue
• 👋 Wanna help? Fork it!

🎩 License

MIT license. Made by Humans from OpenPeeps.
Copyright OpenPeeps & Contributors — All rights reserved.