Getting Started

Stockpile plugins are written in go and use the built-in plugin API (note that this feature is currently only available on Linux and Mac OS). It is highly recommended to use the included Vagrantfile when developing plugins on Windows or other operating systems.

Metadata

While plugins may define an arbitrary set of symbols, they are required to define two special symbols. The first of these is the metadata variable which exposes basic human readable information about your plugin.

The structure is formatted like this:

package main

import (
  "github.com/dotStart/Stockpile/stockpile/plugin"
)

var Metadata = plugin.Metadata{
  Name:    "My Plugin",
  Version: "0.1.0",
  Authors: []string{"Jane Doe"},
  Website: "https://www.example.org/my-plugin",
}

In short, the following properties are currently available:

• Name
  Defines a human readable name which is used to identify your plugin within the web UI and client commands
• Version
  Specifies a revision (we recommend formatting all version numbers using the Semantic Versioning format)
• Authors
  Identifies one or more authors (either by real name or alias) who were involved with the development of the plugin
• Website
  Specifies the website from which this plugin is distributed (this site typically also provides detailed documentation on the plugin)

Initializer Function

In addition to the metadata variable, plugins are also required to define the InitializePlugin function:

func InitializePlugin(ctx *plugin.Context) error {
  ctx.RegisterStorageBackend("mybackend", NewCustomStorageBackend)
  return nil
}

The respective components of your plugin are registered with the plugin context using this function. The following implementation types may be registered at the moment:

• Storage Backend
  Registration Function: RegisterStorageBackend
  Implementation Type: github.com/dotStart/Stockpile/stockpile/database.StorageBackend
  Implementations which handle the permanent storage and retrieval of cache entries

Building

To produce a plugin file which may be loaded by Stockpile, you will need to compile your package(s) using the following command: go build -buildmode=plugin -o myplugin.so

Next Steps

You may continue with the Storage Backend section.