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factorio-clusterio/docs/writing-plugins.md
T
Hornwitser bcceae687f Reimplement plugin system
Implement a new plugin system based subclassing pre-defined base clases
and communicating with pre-defined link messages.
2019-12-14 17:48:56 +01:00

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Markdown

Writing Plugins
===============
Plugins for Clusterio are classes written in JavaScript that run under
Node.js. The plugin classes have pre-defined hooks that are called
during various stages and operations of Clusterio.
Plugin Structure
----------------
The basic file structure of a plugin is the following.
plugin_name/
+- info.js
+- package.json
+- master.js
+- instance.js
+- test/
| +- plugin.js
+- lua/
+- plugin.lua
The most important file is the `info.js` file. Without it the plugin
will not recognized by Clusterio. Here's an example of it:
const link = require('lib/link'); // For messages
module.exports = {
name: "foo_frobber",
title: "Foo Frobber",
description: "Does advance frobnication",
version: "0.8.1",
instanceEntrypoint: "instance",
masterEntrypoint: "master",
messages: {
/* See below */
},
};
The following properties are recognized:
**name**:
Internal name of the plugin. Must be the same as the plugin's
directory name
**title**:
Name of the plugin as shown to users. Currently not used.
**description**:
Brief description of what the plugin does. Currently not used.
**version**:
Semver compatible version string of the plugin. Currently not used.
**instanceEntrypoint**:
Path to a Node.js module relative to the plugin directory which
contains the InstancePlugin class definition for this plugin. This
is an optional paramater. A plugin can be for instances only but
for it to be able to send any messages to other instances it will
still have to be loaded on the master server.
**masterEntrypoint**:
Path to a Node.js module relative to the plugin directory which
contains the MasterPlugin class definiton for this plugin. This is
an optional parameter. A plugin can be made that only runs on the
master server.
**messages**:
Object with link messages definitions for this plugin. See guide
for [defining link messages](#defining-link-messages) below.
While there is no standard for how to organize a plugin it's recommended
to put the MasterPlugin class definition into master.js and the
InstancePlugin class definition into instance.js. You can put them into
whatever file you want (even the same one for both)
For both instanceEntrypoint and masterEntrypoint the path should not end
with .js and it should use forward slashes for directory sepparators if
any.
Defining the plugin class
-------------------------
The plugin class should derive from its respective base class defined in
`lib/plugin`. For example to define a MasterPlugin class the following
code can be used:
const plugin = require('lib/plugin');
class MasterPlugin extends plugin.BaseMasterPlugin {
async init() {
this.foo = 42;
await this.startFrobnication();
}
// ...
}
module.exports = {
MasterPlugin,
}
For the instance plugin it's exactly the same except "Master" is
replaced with "Instance". The available hooks that you can override is
documented on the base class [in lib/plugin.js](../lib/plugin.js).
It's best to avoid defining a constructor, but if you insist on defining
one forward all arguments to be the base class. E.g.:
constructor(...args) {
super(...args);
// Code here
}
The arguments passed may change, and attempting to modify them will
result in unpredicatable behaviour. The async init method always called
immediatly after the constructor so there's little reason to do this.
Defining Link Messages
----------------------
You will most likely have to communicate with the master or other
instances in your plugin for it to do anything useful. For this there's
a WebSocket communication channel established between the slaves and the
master server that plugins can define their own messages to send over
it. This channel is bi-directional and all messages send over it are
validated with a JSON schema (see [this guide][guide] for an
introduction to writing JSON schema.)
[guide]: https://json-schema.org/learn/getting-started-step-by-step.html
There are currently two kinds of messages that can be defined. Events
and requests. Events are simple one way notifications that invoke a
handler on target it's sent to. Requests are pairs of request and
response messages where the request is sent to the target and the
response is the reply back from the target. The requests are similar to
HTTP requests only that both parties of a link may innitiate one.
### Defining Events
Events are defined as properties of the messages object exported by
`info.js` that map to instances of the `Event` class from `lib/link`.
The name of the property correspond to the handler invoked on the plugin
class. The Event constructor takes an object of properties that define
the event, for example the following could be defined in `info.js`:
messages: {
startFrobnication: new link.Event({
type: 'foo_frobber:start_frobnication',
links: ['master-slave', 'slave-instance'],
forwardTo: 'instance',
eventProperties: {
"frobnication_type": { type: "string" },
},
}),
},
This specifies an event that can be sent from the master to a slave,
and from a slave to an instance. And that the event must contain the
property `frobnication_type` with a string value in the data payload.
It will also be forwarded by slaves to a specific instance.
The following properties are recognized by the Event constructor:
**type**:
The message type sent over the wire. This can be any string but
it must be unique across all plugins and it's recommended that it is
of format `plugin_name:message_name`. The suffix `_event` will be
appened to the type.
**links**:
An array of strings describing which links this event can be sent
over. Direction matters, `'master-slave'` means the event can be
sent from the master to slave, but can't be sent back the other way
unless `'slave-master'` is also present in the links array.
**forwardTo**:
Target to forward event to. Can be either `'master'` to indicate a
slave should forward it to the master server or `'instance'` to
indicate it should be forwarded to the instances specified by the
`instance_id` event property. This works by using a default handler
for the event at the links that forward it.
**broadcastTo**:
Target to broadcast this message towards. Currently only
`'instance'` is supported and means the event will be broadcast to
all instances downstream of the target it's sent to, but not back
from where it came from. This means that sending an event to a
slave from an instance will cause it to be broadcast to all
instances of that slave except for the instance it came from.
**eventProperties**:
Object with properties mapping to a JSON schema of that property
that specifies what's valid to send in the event. This is
equivalent to using the `properties` keyword in JSON schema except
that the properties specified are implicitly required and additional
properties are not allowed. See [this guide][guide] for an
introduction to writing JSON schemas
The forwardTo and broadcastTo can be combined such that specifying
`'master'` as the forwardTo value and `'instance'` as the broadcastTo
value will cause the event to be broadcast to all instances in the
cluster. For this to work you will need to specify instance-slave,
slave-master and master-slave, slave-instance as the links.
Keep in mind when forwarding events that if the target an event is being
forwarded to is not online the event will be dropped. If you need a
confirmation that the message was received use a request.
### Definining Requests
Requests are defined as properties of the messages object exported by
`info.js` that map to instances of the `Request` class from `lib/link`.
The name of the property correspond to the handler invoked on the plugin
class. The Request constructor takes an object of properties that define
the event, for example the following could be defined in `info.js`:
messages: {
reportFrobnication: new link.Request({
type: 'foo_frobber:report_frobnication',
links: ['master-slave', 'slave-instance'],
forwardTo: 'instance',
requestProperties: {
"verbosity": { type: "integer" },
},
responseProperties: {
"report": {
type: "array",
items: { type: "string" },
},
},
}),
},
This specifies a request that can be sent from the master to a slave,
and from a slave to an instance. The request data must contain the
property `verbosity` with an integer number as the value as well as the
`instance_id` property (implied by `forwardTo: 'instance'`), and the
response sent must contain a `report` property mapping to an array of
strings. When received by a slave it will also be forwarded to the
instance specified by `instance_id`.
The following properties are recognized by the Request constructor:
**type**:
The message type sent over the wire. This can be any string but
it must be unique across all plugins and it's recommended that it is
of format `plugin_name:message_name`. The suffix `_request` will be
appened to the type for the request message sent, and the suffix
`_response` will be appended to the type for the response.
**links**:
An array of strings describing which links this request can be sent
over. Direction matters, `'master-slave'` means the request can be
sent from the master to slave and the slave can reply to the master,
but the slave can't sent a request to the master unless
`'slave-master'` is also present in the links array.
**forwardTo**:
Target to forward request to. Can be either `'master'` to indicate
a slave should forward it to the master server when receiving it
from an instance or `'instance'` to indicate it should be forwarded
to the instances specified by the `instance_id` event property.
This works by using a default handler for the event at the links
that forward it.
**requestProperties**:
Object with properties mapping to a JSON schema of that property
that specifies what's valid to send in the request. This is
equivalent to using the `properties` keyword in JSON schema except
that the properties specified are implicitly required and additional
properties are not allowed. See [this guide][guide] for an
introduction to writing JSON schemas
**responseProperties**:
Same as the requestProperties only for the response sent back by the
target.
Sending Link Messages
---------------------
Link messages are sent by calling the `.send()` method on the
Event/Request instance with the link you want to send it over and the
data to send. For instance plugins the link is the instance itself
which is accessible through the `.instance` property on the plugin. The
`.info` property of the plugin class exposes the data exported from the
plugin's `info.js` module. In other words:
// In an InstancePlugin class
async frobnicate() {
this.info.messages.exampleEvent.send(this.instance, { foo: "bar" });
}
For the Request class the send method is async and returns the response
data received from the target it was sent to, or throws an error if the
request failed.