Files
DriverVault/API Server/internal/plugins/README.md
T
tajniak81andClaude Opus 5 660af5736a Plugins: create the settings collection instead of waiting for it forever
01a8fec fixed the advice that led operators into this, but advice is not a
guard: a stack still running PB_BOOTSTRAP=false gets no app_settings
collection on upgrade, and the plugin panel sits at 503 while the retry
loop reads a collection that does not exist.

The fix is not to soften the reading. A missing collection stays "not
ready" rather than "no plugins configured", because the alternative lets
the first save write a fresh document over settings the server merely
failed to find - the failure this whole line of work exists to prevent.
Instead the server now fixes the cause: on a missing collection it creates
that collection and reads again.

Three pieces:

bootstrap.EnsureCollection creates one named collection from the desired
schema if absent, and nothing else. Deliberately narrower than Run - no
field reconcile elsewhere, no super-admin - so it is safe to call on a
deployment that turned the full bootstrap off. It creates the collection
the server cannot start without, not the schema the operator declined.

The store tells a missing collection apart from an outage. A 404 from a
list means the collection itself is gone: an existing but empty one answers
200 with no items. That is tagged errNoCollection, which wraps errNotReady
so every write is still refused, and IsMissingCollection narrows it. The
distinction matters because the remedies are opposites - creating
collections against a flaky database is exactly the wrong reflex, and a
test pins that an outage does not trigger it.

loadPlugins acts on the tag once, then re-reads. Failing to create is
reported as the original read error rather than the repair's, so the log
names the real problem.

Six tests: the tag and its negative in internal/plugins, and three in
internal/api against a fake PocketBase covering the collection being
created exactly once, an existing collection not being recreated, and an
outage creating nothing.

Docs from 01a8fec are corrected in the same pass - they said the panel
would answer 503 forever, which is no longer true. They now say what still
depends on the bootstrap (every other collection and field) and what does
not (app_settings alone).

go build, go vet and go test ./... pass; compose files still parse. Not
verified: no Docker CLI here, so the repair has not been exercised against
a real PocketBase, only the fake.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-21 17:07:18 +02:00

339 lines
14 KiB
Markdown

# Building DriverVault Plugins
A **plugin** integrates an external third-party service (vehicle data, parts
catalogs, notifications, file storage, …) behind one uniform contract. There are
two kinds:
| Kind | Written as | Added by | Rebuild? | Use when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **built-in** | Go code in this repo | a rebuild | yes | first-party, high-trust, type-safe connectors |
| **external** | any HTTP service | registering a URL at runtime | **no** | third-party / less-trusted / independently deployed |
Both implement the same behaviour; the server treats them identically. Enable
state and per-plugin config persist to PocketBase and load on boot. Every plugin
is managed by a **superadmin** from the panel (`/`) or the `/api/admin/plugins*`
API.
---
## The contract
All plugins satisfy the Go interface in [`plugin.go`](plugin.go):
```go
type Plugin interface {
Descriptor() Descriptor
Init(ctx context.Context, config map[string]string) error
HealthCheck(ctx context.Context) Health
Invoke(ctx context.Context, action string, params json.RawMessage) (json.RawMessage, error)
Shutdown(ctx context.Context) error
}
```
- **`Descriptor`** — static metadata (name, provider, version, capabilities,
auth type, config fields). Drives the panel UI.
- **`Init`** — called with the resolved config (secrets included) whenever the
plugin is enabled or its config changes. Prepare clients/tokens here.
- **`HealthCheck`** — probe the upstream and classify: `Health{Status, LatencyMs, Detail}`
where `Status` is `StatusOK` / `StatusDegraded` / `StatusDown`.
- **`Invoke`** — run a named capability. There is no *generic* invoke endpoint yet,
but this is live: the integration routes and the vehicle-provider layer call it
through `Manager.InvokeWith` / `InvokeBatchWith`, so implement it properly. It
must be safe for concurrent use — the live instance is shared across requests,
and `InvokeBatchWith` runs a batch of actions in parallel on one instance.
- **`Shutdown`** — release resources.
### Descriptor & config fields
```go
Descriptor{
Name: "acme", // unique id, [a-z0-9-]
Provider: "ACME Corp", // human label
Version: "1.0.0",
Kind: plugins.KindBuiltin, // or KindExternal
Capabilities: []plugins.Capability{
{ID: "widgets.list", Method: "GET", Endpoint: "/widgets", Description: "List widgets."},
},
AuthType: plugins.AuthAPIKey, // None | APIKey | Basic | OAuth2 | Webhook (metadata only)
ConfigFields: []plugins.ConfigField{
{Key: "apiKey", Label: "API key", Type: "password", Required: true, Secret: true,
Help: "Found under ACME → Settings → API."},
{Key: "region", Label: "Region", Type: "text", Help: "e.g. eu-west-1"},
},
}
```
`ConfigField.Type` is `"text"`, `"password"`, or `"number"` (form input hint).
Set **`Secret: true`** for credentials — the server never echoes them back in
clear; the panel shows a mask (`••••••••`), and on save a field left at the mask
keeps its stored value (so operators don't retype secrets). **`Required: true`**
fields must be non-empty before the plugin can be enabled.
---
## Building a built-in plugin
1. **Create a package** under `internal/plugins/builtin/<name>/`.
2. **Implement `Plugin`** and **register it in `init()`**.
3. **Blank-import** your package from [`builtin/builtin.go`](builtin/builtin.go).
4. **Rebuild** the server.
### Minimal example — `internal/plugins/builtin/acme/acme.go`
```go
package acme
import (
"context"
"encoding/json"
"net/http"
"strings"
"time"
"drivervault/apiserver/internal/plugins"
)
func init() {
plugins.Register("acme", func() plugins.Plugin { return &Plugin{} })
}
type Plugin struct {
apiKey string
region string
client *http.Client
}
func (p *Plugin) Descriptor() plugins.Descriptor {
return plugins.Descriptor{
Name: "acme", Provider: "ACME Corp", Version: "1.0.0",
Kind: plugins.KindBuiltin, AuthType: plugins.AuthAPIKey,
Capabilities: []plugins.Capability{
{ID: "widgets.list", Method: "GET", Endpoint: "/widgets", Description: "List widgets."},
},
ConfigFields: []plugins.ConfigField{
{Key: "apiKey", Label: "API key", Type: "password", Required: true, Secret: true},
{Key: "region", Label: "Region", Type: "text"},
},
}
}
func (p *Plugin) Init(_ context.Context, config map[string]string) error {
p.apiKey = strings.TrimSpace(config["apiKey"])
p.region = strings.TrimSpace(config["region"])
p.client = &http.Client{Timeout: 10 * time.Second}
return nil
}
func (p *Plugin) HealthCheck(ctx context.Context) plugins.Health {
start := time.Now()
req, _ := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, http.MethodGet, "https://api.acme.example/ping", nil)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+p.apiKey)
resp, err := p.client.Do(req)
lat := time.Since(start).Milliseconds()
if err != nil {
return plugins.Health{Status: plugins.StatusDown, LatencyMs: lat, Detail: err.Error()}
}
defer resp.Body.Close()
if resp.StatusCode >= 200 && resp.StatusCode < 300 {
return plugins.Health{Status: plugins.StatusOK, LatencyMs: lat, Detail: "reachable"}
}
return plugins.Health{Status: plugins.StatusDown, LatencyMs: lat, Detail: "HTTP " + resp.Status}
}
func (p *Plugin) Invoke(ctx context.Context, action string, params json.RawMessage) (json.RawMessage, error) {
// Implement your capabilities; return normalized JSON. Must be safe for
// concurrent use — one instance serves many requests.
return json.RawMessage(`{"ok":true}`), nil
}
func (p *Plugin) Shutdown(context.Context) error { return nil }
```
### Register it for compilation — `internal/plugins/builtin/builtin.go`
```go
import (
_ "drivervault/apiserver/internal/plugins/builtin/acme"
)
```
### Rebuild
```powershell
cd "API Server"
go build -o bin/api-server.exe ./cmd/server
```
Restart the server. The plugin appears in the panel's **Plugins** card,
**disabled** by default.
> DriverVault ships two built-in connectors today — `toyota` (Toyota Connected /
> MyToyota, read-only vehicle data) and `anker-solix` (Anker Solix V1 EV charger)
> — both blank-imported from `builtin/builtin.go`. The **external** kind below
> needs no rebuild and is the easier place to start a new one.
---
## Building an external plugin (no rebuild)
An external plugin is **any HTTP service** you host (Go recommended, but any
language works). You register its base URL at runtime; the server drives it over
a tiny JSON contract.
### The HTTP contract
| Method & path | Purpose | Response |
|---|---|---|
| `GET {base}/manifest` | describe the plugin (optional) | `{provider, version, capabilities, authType, configFields}` |
| `GET {base}/health` | health probe (required) | `2xx` = healthy; optional body `{status, detail}` |
| `POST {base}/invoke` | run a capability (optional; unused in v1) | `{action, params}` in → arbitrary JSON out |
Health rules the server applies: transport error or `5xx``down`; `2xx``ok`;
anything else → `degraded`. An explicit `{"status":"ok|degraded|down","detail":"…"}`
body overrides the status-code heuristic. Bodies are size-limited (health 64 KiB,
manifest 1 MiB).
### Minimal example — a Go plugin service
```go
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
"net/http"
)
func main() {
http.HandleFunc("/manifest", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(map[string]any{
"provider": "ACME Cloud",
"version": "2.1.0",
"authType": "apikey",
"capabilities": []map[string]any{
{"id": "widgets.list", "method": "GET", "endpoint": "/widgets", "description": "List widgets."},
}, // a plain []string{"widgets.list"} is also accepted
"configFields": []map[string]any{
{"key": "apiKey", "label": "API key", "type": "password", "required": true, "secret": true},
},
})
})
http.HandleFunc("/health", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(map[string]any{"status": "ok", "detail": "acme cloud reachable"})
})
http.HandleFunc("/invoke", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
var in struct {
Action string `json:"action"`
Params json.RawMessage `json:"params"`
}
json.NewDecoder(r.Body).Decode(&in)
json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(map[string]any{"ok": true, "action": in.Action})
})
http.ListenAndServe(":9100", nil)
}
```
### Register it
From the panel's **Plugins** card → *Register external plugin* (name + base URL),
or via the API:
```bash
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/admin/plugins \
-H "Authorization: $SUPERADMIN_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"name":"acme-cloud","baseURL":"http://127.0.0.1:9100","provider":"ACME Cloud"}'
```
It starts **disabled**; enable it and run a health check from the panel. Because
it runs as its own process/container, an external plugin is also the
**sandboxing** path for less-trusted integrations.
---
## Lifecycle, config & secrets
- **Enable/disable** and **config** persist to PocketBase: the `app_settings`
record keyed `global`, in its `pluginSettings` field. That is the top (L1)
layer of the integration cascade, stored the same way the org (L2) and user
(L3) layers are. Enabling calls `Init`; disabling calls `Shutdown`.
- **Before the settings have been read** — a cold database, or a service account
still to be configured — every `/api/admin/plugins*` endpoint answers **503**
and no write is accepted. The server never treats an unreachable database as
"no plugins configured", so an outage cannot quietly erase the settings; it
retries in the background until the read succeeds.
- **Upgrading from a pre-PocketBase install**: an existing `plugins.json` (see
`PLUGINS_FILE`) is imported into the database on the first boot that finds no
settings there, and renamed to `plugins.json.migrated`.
- **If the `app_settings` collection is missing** — an upgrade on a stack that
runs with `PB_BOOTSTRAP=false`, so the on-boot schema pass never created it —
the server creates that one collection itself and reads again. A missing
collection is told apart from a database that is merely unreachable, because
the remedy differs: creating collections is the wrong reflex during an outage.
- **Secrets** (`Secret: true` fields) are returned masked. On save, a field still
equal to the mask keeps its stored value; send a new value to change it, or an
empty string to clear it.
- **Required** fields are validated when enabling — enabling fails with a clear
error if one is blank.
- If `Init` fails (e.g. bad credentials), the state is still saved and the API
returns the plugin plus a `warning`; fix the config and re-save.
---
## Managing plugins (superadmin API)
All endpoints require a superadmin bearer token (`Authorization: <token>` from
`POST /api/auth/login`). See the panel's **Management API** reference too.
| Method | Path | Body | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| `GET` | `/api/admin/plugins` | — | list all plugins + state + last health |
| `GET` | `/api/admin/plugins/{name}` | — | one plugin |
| `PUT` | `/api/admin/plugins/{name}` | `{enabled?, config?}` | enable/disable + configure |
| `POST` | `/api/admin/plugins` | `{name, baseURL, provider?}` | register an external plugin |
| `DELETE` | `/api/admin/plugins/{name}` | — | remove an external plugin (built-ins only disable) |
| `POST` | `/api/admin/plugins/{name}/health` | — | run a health check now |
---
## Testing your plugin
1. Build + restart (built-in) or start your service (external) and register it.
2. `GET /api/admin/plugins` → confirm your descriptor, config fields, capabilities.
3. `PUT /api/admin/plugins/{name} {"enabled":true, "config":{…}}` → enable with config.
4. `POST /api/admin/plugins/{name}/health` → confirm the live probe classifies correctly.
5. Restart the server → confirm state reloads from PocketBase.
A Go unit test can exercise a built-in directly:
```go
p := &acme.Plugin{}
_ = p.Init(context.Background(), map[string]string{"apiKey": "test"})
if h := p.HealthCheck(context.Background()); h.Status == "" {
t.Fatal("expected a health status")
}
```
---
## Not yet implemented (roadmap)
The contract is shaped for these; see [`doc.go`](doc.go):
- **Generic invocation API** — an endpoint to call *any* plugin's `Invoke` from a
client, with a normalized request/response envelope. The purpose-built callers
exist (`Manager.InvokeWith` / `InvokeBatchWith`, driven by the integration routes
and `internal/api/vehicleproviders.go`); what is missing is the generic route.
- **Resilience** — retry/backoff, circuit breaker, per-plugin latency/error metrics.
- **Per-tenant credentials _for arbitrary plugins_** — the two built-in connectors
already have them, through the hand-written `/api/integrations/toyota` and
`/api/integrations/anker-solix` routes and their **superadmin → org admin →
user** config cascade. What is missing is the generic version: per-org/per-user
config keyed off `ConfigFields`, so a newly registered plugin gets the same
treatment without new endpoints.
- **Audit logging** of plugin access. (Charger *control* commands are already
audited to the `control_audit` collection; this is the wider plugin case.)
Until the generic invocation API lands, `Invoke` is reachable only through the
purpose-built routes: the two integrations' own endpoints, and the vehicle-provider
layer that builds a car from a manufacturer account and feeds the car's provider
tab (see `internal/api/vehicleproviders.go`).