Maintain dynamic plugins

Maintain Dynamic Plugins

Companion Guidance

Use karpathy-guidelines, validate-change, maintain-packaging, and contribute-docs alongside this skill when implementation, packaging, CI, or documentation changes are involved.

Use this skill for plugin.kind = "rust_dynamic", plugin.kind = "worker", nemo-relay-plugin, nemo-relay-worker, nemo-relay-worker-proto, nemo-relay-types, and the Python nemo-relay-plugin package.

Rules

• Keep the stable boundary explicit: native plugins cross a C ABI; worker plugins cross grpc-v1.
• Do not pass Rust runtime types, trait objects, futures, or allocator-owned strings across the native dynamic-library boundary.
• Typed native middleware futures run on the SDK-owned Tokio executor. Keep subscribers synchronous and preserve raw synchronous ABI registrations.
• Define closed worker transport structures in protobuf when generated clients must enforce their fields. Keep open application payloads lossless by using JsonValue or JsonEnvelope rather than google.protobuf.Value.
• Keep relay-plugin.toml dynamic records separate from generic runtime components. Enabled dynamic records may synthesize internal component specs; disabled records stay inspectable but unloaded.
• Relay 0.8 establishes the native API 1 and grpc-v1 canonical ToolExecutionResult baseline. Require every dynamic plugin to rebuild and declare a compat.relay range that excludes versions before 0.8. Recommend >=0.8.0,<1.0; open-ended or narrower 0.8-or-newer ranges are valid.
• Treat compat.relay as the plugin author's compatibility assertion, not proof that an artifact was rebuilt. Do not add a legacy raw-result adapter.
• Relay 0.8 retains the grpc-v1 identifier and nemo.relay.worker.v1 package while changing the tool-result protobuf types; every worker must regenerate its bindings and rebuild. Native ABI v4 remains unchanged. After this baseline reset, future incompatible native JSON or worker protobuf changes must bump native_api or worker_protocol.
• Do not add tests under src; Rust tests belong in crate tests/ trees and Python SDK tests belong under python/tests.
• Native and worker plugins are trusted extensions. Document that native plugins are in-process and unsandboxed; worker plugins provide process isolation but not a security sandbox.

Checklist

• Manifest validation covers kind, compatibility, load contract, integrity, capability mismatch, and disabled-plugin behavior.
• Native loader keeps libraries alive until registered callbacks are cleared and deregisters plugin kinds before unload.
• Worker activation covers process launch, token auth, handshake, validation, declarative registration, proxy rollback, cancellation, and shutdown.
• Rust and Python SDKs expose every supported registration surface.
• Runtime helpers cover marks, scopes, continuations, and isolated scope stacks.
• plugins list, plugins inspect, and plugins validate report lifecycle and compatibility status without leaking secret config.
• Top-level doctor reports resolved dynamic plugin and host configuration status.
• When detailed dynamic plugin guides exist, they keep Rust native, Python worker, and grpc-v1 protocol details on separate pages.
• justfile, Codecov, and CI package/test workflows include new plugin crates and packages.

Validation

just build-test-plugin-fixtures
cargo test -p nemo-relay-types
cargo test -p nemo-relay-plugin
cargo test -p nemo-relay-worker-proto
cargo test -p nemo-relay-worker
cargo test -p nemo-relay --features worker-grpc --test native_plugin_integration --test worker_plugin_integration
just test-python-plugin
just test-rust
just test-python
just docs

The canonical just test-rust, just test-python, and just test-go recipes prepare plugin fixtures automatically. Run just build-test-plugin-fixtures before raw focused native or worker plugin tests; fixture compilation must not happen inside an individual test case.

For broad runtime or public API changes, run the full validate-change matrix.

References

• crates/core/src/plugin/dynamic/
• crates/plugin
• crates/worker
• crates/worker-proto
• crates/types
• python/plugin
• examples/rust-native-plugin
• docs/build-plugins
• examples/python-grpc-worker-plugin