# Description
[Context on
Discord](https://discord.com/channels/601130461678272522/855947301380947968/1292279795035668583)
**This is a breaking change, due to the removal of `is_running`.**
Some users find the `plugin list` command confusing, because it doesn't
show anything different after running `plugin add` or `plugin rm`. This
modifies the `plugin list` command to also look at the plugin registry
file to give some idea of how the plugins in engine state differ from
those in the plugin registry file.
The following values of `status` are now produced instead of
`is_running`:
- `added`: The plugin is present in the plugin registry file, but not in
the engine.
- `loaded`: The plugin is present both in the plugin registry file and
in the engine, but is not running.
- `running`: The plugin is currently running, and the `pid` column
should contain its process ID.
- `modified`: The plugin state present in the plugin registry file is
different from the state in the engine.
- `removed`: The plugin is still loaded in the engine, but is not
present in the plugin registry file.
- `invalid`: The data in the plugin registry file couldn't be
deserialized, and the plugin most likely needs to be added again.
Example (`commands` omitted):
```
╭──────┬─────────────────────┬────────────┬───────────┬──────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────╮
│ # │ name │ version │ status │ pid │ filename │ shell │
├──────┼─────────────────────┼────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼─────────┤
│ 0 │ custom_values │ 0.1.0 │ loaded │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_custom_values │ │
│ 1 │ dbus │ 0.11.0 │ loaded │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_dbus │ │
│ 2 │ example │ 0.98.1 │ loaded │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_example │ │
│ 3 │ explore_ir │ 0.3.0 │ loaded │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_explore_ir │ │
│ 4 │ formats │ 0.98.1 │ loaded │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_formats │ │
│ 5 │ gstat │ 0.98.1 │ running │ 236662 │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_gstat │ │
│ 6 │ inc │ 0.98.1 │ loaded │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_inc │ │
│ 7 │ polars │ 0.98.1 │ added │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_polars │ │
│ 8 │ query │ 0.98.1 │ removed │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_query │ │
│ 9 │ stress_internals │ 0.98.1 │ loaded │ │ /home/devyn/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_stress_internals │ │
╰──────┴─────────────────────┴────────────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────╯
```
# User-Facing Changes
To `plugin list`:
* **Breaking:** The `is_running` column is removed and replaced with
`status`. Use `status == running` to filter equivalently.
* The `--plugin-config` from other plugin management commands is now
supported.
* Added an `--engine` flag which behaves more or less like before, and
doesn't load the plugin registry file at all.
* Added a `--registry` flag which only checks the plugin registry file.
All plugins appear as `added` since there is no state to compare with.
Because the default is to check both, the `plugin list` command might be
a little bit slower. If you don't need to check the plugin registry
file, the `--engine` flag does not load the plugin registry file at all,
so it should be just as fast as before.
# Tests + Formatting
Added tests for `added` and `removed` statuses. `modified` and `invalid`
are a bit more tricky so I didn't try.
# After Submitting
- [ ] update documentation that references the `plugin list` command
- [ ] release notes
# Description
This allows plugins to report their version (and potentially other
metadata in the future). The version is shown in `plugin list` and in
`version`.
The metadata is stored in the registry file, and reflects whatever was
retrieved on `plugin add`, not necessarily the running binary. This can
help you to diagnose if there's some kind of mismatch with what you
expect. We could potentially use this functionality to show a warning or
error if a plugin being run does not have the same version as what was
in the cache file, suggesting `plugin add` be run again, but I haven't
done that at this point.
It is optional, and it requires the plugin author to make some code
changes if they want to provide it, since I can't automatically
determine the version of the calling crate or anything tricky like that
to do it.
Example:
```
> plugin list | select name version is_running pid
╭───┬────────────────┬─────────┬────────────┬─────╮
│ # │ name │ version │ is_running │ pid │
├───┼────────────────┼─────────┼────────────┼─────┤
│ 0 │ example │ 0.93.1 │ false │ │
│ 1 │ gstat │ 0.93.1 │ false │ │
│ 2 │ inc │ 0.93.1 │ false │ │
│ 3 │ python_example │ 0.1.0 │ false │ │
╰───┴────────────────┴─────────┴────────────┴─────╯
```
cc @maxim-uvarov (he asked for it)
# User-Facing Changes
- `plugin list` gets a `version` column
- `version` shows plugin versions when available
- plugin authors *should* add `fn metadata()` to their `impl Plugin`,
but don't have to
# Tests + Formatting
Tested the low level stuff and also the `plugin list` column.
# After Submitting
- [ ] update plugin guide docs
- [ ] update plugin protocol docs (`Metadata` call & response)
- [ ] update plugin template (`fn metadata()` should be easy)
- [ ] release notes
# Description
I've found that sometimes on Linux, this test fails to find the created
process even after it should definitely be running.
Trying to add a little delay.
# Description
This allows the following commands to all accept a filename instead of a
plugin name:
- `plugin use`
- `plugin rm`
- `plugin stop`
Slightly complicated because of the need to also check against
`NU_PLUGIN_DIRS`, but I also fixed some issues with that at the same
time
Requested by @fdncred
# User-Facing Changes
The new commands are updated as described.
# Tests + Formatting
Tests for `NU_PLUGIN_DIRS` handling also made more robust.
- 🟢 `toolkit fmt`
- 🟢 `toolkit clippy`
- 🟢 `toolkit test`
- 🟢 `toolkit test stdlib`
# After Submitting
- [ ] Double check new docs to make sure they describe this capability
# Description
As suggested by @WindSoilder, since plugins can now contain both simple
commands that produce `Value` and commands that produce `PipelineData`
without having to choose one or the other for the whole plugin, this
change merges `stream_example` into `example`.
# User-Facing Changes
All of the example plugins are renamed.
# Tests + Formatting
- 🟢 `toolkit fmt`
- 🟢 `toolkit clippy`
- 🟢 `toolkit test`
- 🟢 `toolkit test stdlib`
# After Submitting
- [ ] Check nushell/nushell.github.io for any docs that match the
command names changed
# Description
These tests have been causing some pain, so I've done a few more things
to try to make them a bit more tolerant of running slowly.
- `plugin_process_exits_after_stop`: using timeout strategy, allows the
process 5 seconds to exit.
- generally don't use sleep to test anything less than 100ms
# User-Facing Changes
# Tests + Formatting
- 🟢 `toolkit fmt`
- 🟢 `toolkit clippy`
- 🟢 `toolkit test`
- 🟢 `toolkit test stdlib`
# After Submitting
# Description
There were two problems in `PersistentPlugin` which could cause a
deadlock:
1. There were two mutexes being used, and `get()` could potentially hold
both simultaneously if it had to spawn. This won't necessarily cause a
deadlock on its own, but it does mean that lock order is sensitive
2. `set_gc_config()` called `flush()` while still holding the lock,
meaning that the GC thread had to proceed before the lock was released.
However, waiting for the GC thread to proceed could mean waiting for the
GC thread to call `stop()`, which itself would try to lock the mutex.
So, it's not safe to wait for the GC thread while the lock is held. This
is fixed now.
I've also reverted #12177, as @IanManske reported that this was also
happening for him on Linux, and it seems to be this problem which should
not be platform-specific at all. I believe this solves it.
# User-Facing Changes
None
# Tests + Formatting
- 🟢 `toolkit fmt`
- 🟢 `toolkit clippy`
- 🟢 `toolkit test`
- 🟢 `toolkit test stdlib`
# After Submitting
# Description
These are hanging the CI sometimes, and that's no good. I'll try to
figure out how to make these tests pass consistently in the meantime.
# User-Facing Changes
I haven't heard any feedback so far that the plugin GC doesn't actually
work on macOS, so hopefully it's not a big problem, but we won't know
until I'm able to track down the problem.
# After Submitting
- [ ] Fix the tests so they don't get stuck
# Description
This makes the test a bit more complicated, but implements a timeout
loop in the script. As long as the test completes in 5 seconds it's
considered to be ok. The default is 10 seconds, so that would still be
half that.
This should help with running on the busy CI where things sometimes take
a while. Unfortunately this is a timing sensitive test. The alternative
is basically to just not test this at all because it's too difficult to
guarantee that it will complete in time. If we continue to have issues,
I might just have to take that route instead.
# Description
This PR uses the new plugin protocol to intelligently keep plugin
processes running in the background for further plugin calls.
Running plugins can be seen by running the new `plugin list` command,
and stopped by running the new `plugin stop` command.
This is an enhancement for the performance of plugins, as starting new
plugin processes has overhead, especially for plugins in languages that
take a significant amount of time on startup. It also enables plugins
that have persistent state between commands, making the migration of
features like dataframes and `stor` to plugins possible.
Plugins are automatically stopped by the new plugin garbage collector,
configurable with `$env.config.plugin_gc`:
```nushell
$env.config.plugin_gc = {
# Configuration for plugin garbage collection
default: {
enabled: true # true to enable stopping of inactive plugins
stop_after: 10sec # how long to wait after a plugin is inactive to stop it
}
plugins: {
# alternate configuration for specific plugins, by name, for example:
#
# gstat: {
# enabled: false
# }
}
}
```
If garbage collection is enabled, plugins will be stopped after
`stop_after` passes after they were last active. Plugins are counted as
inactive if they have no running plugin calls. Reading the stream from
the response of a plugin call is still considered to be activity, but if
a plugin holds on to a stream but the call ends without an active
streaming response, it is not counted as active even if it is reading
it. Plugins can explicitly disable the GC as appropriate with
`engine.set_gc_disabled(true)`.
The `version` command now lists plugin names rather than plugin
commands. The list of plugin commands is accessible via `plugin list`.
Recommend doing this together with #12029, because it will likely force
plugin developers to do the right thing with mutability and lead to less
unexpected behavior when running plugins nested / in parallel.
# User-Facing Changes
- new command: `plugin list`
- new command: `plugin stop`
- changed command: `version` (now lists plugin names, rather than
commands)
- new config: `$env.config.plugin_gc`
- Plugins will keep running and be reused, at least for the configured
GC period
- Plugins that used mutable state in weird ways like `inc` did might
misbehave until fixed
- Plugins can disable GC if they need to
- Had to change plugin signature to accept `&EngineInterface` so that
the GC disable feature works. #12029 does this anyway, and I'm expecting
(resolvable) conflicts with that
# Tests + Formatting
- 🟢 `toolkit fmt`
- 🟢 `toolkit clippy`
- 🟢 `toolkit test`
- 🟢 `toolkit test stdlib`
Because there is some specific OS behavior required for plugins to not
respond to Ctrl-C directly, I've developed against and tested on both
Linux and Windows to ensure that works properly.
# After Submitting
I think this probably needs to be in the book somewhere
