README

ssb-plugins

ssb-plugins is a plugin that provides additional plugin related functionality to a secret-stack instance.

Without ssb-plugins, plugins can only be loaded explicitly by an ssb-server with the .use() method.

Generally speaking, this plugin provides the abilility for plugins to be loaded and run as a separate process, with communication over muxrpc.

There are 2 main ways that plugins can be enabled using ssb-plugins:

loaded explicitly as part of the creation of a secret-stack instance
loaded as a set of user configured plugins, defined in one's ssb config folder

Additionally, if enabling plugins from user-configuration, making use of .use(require('ssb-plugins')) explicitly will enable the CLI commands for users to install / uninstall / enable / disable plugins manually.

For explicit documentation of the CLI API, see here.

How to write plugins

See secret-stack/PLUGINS.md for how to create a plugin

Examples

var createSbot = require('secret-stack')()
.use(require('ssb-db'))

createSbot
  .use(require('ssb-plugins/load-user-plugins')()) //load user plugins from configuration. This may be used without the above!
  .use(require('ssb-plugins/load')(path, name))  //load an out of process plugin directly.
  .use(require('ssb-plugins'))  //provides install, uninstall, enable, disable. (optional)

In-line out of process plugins

Run a plugin as a separate process. The process is started by the parent process, and they communicate by running muxrpc over stdio. This means that plugins may now be written in a language other than javascript.

out of process plugins can be loaded manually. using require('ssb-plugins/load')(location, name)`

var Load = require('ssb-plugins/load')
createSbot
  .use(Load(path/to/plugin, 'plugin'))

Load user configured plugins

add all plugins defined in configuration.

createSbot
  .use(require('ssb-plugins/load-user-plugins'))

Plugins are configured as following: Normally this is created by sbot plugins.install <plugin-name> but it can also be installed manually.

  "plugins": {
    //load a javascript plugin, exposed as "plugin1"
    "ssb-plugin1: true,
    //load your own version of plugin2. note it is renamed to "plugin2"
    //so it is exposed as "plugin2" not "plugin2-forked"
    "ssb-plugin2-forked: "plugin2",
    "ssb-plugin2": {
      enabled: true,
      name, process
    }
  }

Installing a user configured ssb-plugin manually

cd ~/.ssb
npm install <plugin-name>
# open `./config` in your favorite editor
nano config
# set the config
"plugins": {
  "<plugin-name>": true
}
# or if it's an out of process plugin
"plugins": {
  "<plugin-name>": {
    "process": true,
    "name": ... //if it should be exposed with a different name...
  }
}

License

MIT

Usage no npm install needed!