Introduction

Overview

The Plugin Manager (plugin_manager) is the core module of the koalak library, designed to facilitate the development of applications with a plugin-based architecture. It provides a structured and efficient way to manage plugins by reducing boilerplate and offering streamlined default functionality.

Key Features

• Enforced Plugin Constraints: Ensures plugins comply with predefined rules at class creation, such as:

  • Implementing specific methods (abstract methods at class definition).
  • Including required attributes with specific types.
  • Enforce required metadata (e.g., category, description, version, authors)

• Plugin Metadata: Enables plugin metadata with features:

  • Allows filtering plugins by metadata (e.g., description, category, tags, version, authors).
  • Controls plugin sequence using metadata.order.
  • Verifies plugin dependencies, including Python libraries and executable dependencies in the system's PATH.

• Home Plugin Loading: Supports loading user-defined plugins from a dedicated home directory, allowing customization without modifying the core application. Example: Loading plugins from ~/.myapp/plugins/.

• Customizing Plugin Attributes: Enables the customization of plugin settings through .toml configuration files, such as ~/.myapp/plugins/plugins.toml. This allows loading and overriding plugin attributes at runtime, providing flexibility to adjust plugin behavior for different environments or user configurations.