#Project and manifest

A plugin project is a normal TypeScript project with one extra file, inu.config.ts. This page explains that file, every field of the manifest, the header the CLI generates from it, and what the build does.

#The configuration file

// inu.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from '@inugram/cli'

export default defineConfig({
  outDir: 'dist',
  plugins: {
    dog: {
      entry: 'src/dog/index.ts',
      manifest: {
        name: 'Dog',
        id: 'com.github.you.dog',
        author: '@you',
        version: '1.0.0',
        description: { en: 'Shows a dog', uk: 'Показує собаку' },
        icon: 'inu://mute',
        grants: ['onUpdate(new_message)', 'account.read(peers)'],
      },
    },
  },
})

The configuration file is found by name: inu.config.ts, inu.config.mts, inu.config.js or inu.config.mjs. The CLI validates it with the same rules the app applies when a plugin is installed, so a manifest that would be refused fails inu check and inu build with the app's reason.

The key under plugins (dog above) is only a handle for the CLI: inu dev dog builds and pushes just that plugin. It is not the plugin's id.

One project can hold many plugins, each with its own entry and manifest. Small plugins that do one thing are easier to audit and to maintain than one big plugin with a lot of switches, so splitting is usually the right call.

#The manifest

Only name is required. Everything else is optional, but a plugin you share should fill in id, author, version and description.

#Versions

Use major.minor.patch, optionally with a suffix: 1.0.0, 1.2.0-beta. When a plugin is updated, the app compares versions: 0.10.0 is newer than 0.9.0, and 1.0.0 is newer than 1.0.0-beta. Always raise the version when you publish a change. A published version is never replaced.

#Descriptions in several languages

description: { en: 'Shows a dog', uk: 'Показує собаку', ru: 'Показывает собаку' },

The header gets one @description line for the default text and one @description:xx line for each other language. The default is the en entry, or the first one if there is no en. The app shows the text that matches the user's language.

#Icons

The icon field takes one of these forms:

Any other value draws a placeholder icon. The value must be a single line.

#The header

The CLI turns the manifest into a header at the top of the built file. It is a comment in a userscript style:

// ==InuPlugin==
// @name         Dog
// @id           com.github.you.dog
// @author       @you
// @version      1.0.0
// @description  Shows a dog
// @description:uk Показує собаку
// @icon         inu://mute
// @grant        onUpdate(new_message)
// @grant        account.read(peers)
// @plugin-api   1
// @platform     android
// ==/InuPlugin==

The app, the Marketplace and the publishing bot all read this block, so what is in it is what users see. A few lines are written by the tool for you:

• @plugin-api is 1. It is bumped only for major breaking changes of the API. Apps support only the latest value, so a plugin written for an older API does not run on a newer app.
• @platform is android.
• Each grants item becomes one @grant line.

Plugins that use the entinyGram SDK also get a @requires entinygram.sdk >=… line, plus placement directives. Those come from withEntiny, never from hand editing.

#Building

inu build type checks the project and bundles each plugin with esbuild into one .inu.js file in outDir. The bundle has no imports: everything you import is inlined.

You can change the esbuild options for every plugin, or for one:

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: { /* ... */ },
  esbuild: (options, plugin) => {
    options.define = { DEBUG: 'false' }
  },
})

Do not turn on minify. A minified plugin is much harder for users to audit, and the plugin channel does not accept obfuscated code. Plain readable output is the norm.

The build also compiles every routine you wrote into bytecode and checks that the manifest, the grants and the types are valid. inu check does the validation without writing files.

#Importing other files

Because the CLI bundles, you can use import freely in the project: your own modules, packages from npm, type only imports. Files such as small SVGs can be turned into strings at build time if you add a loader through the esbuild hook:

esbuild: options => ({ ...options, loader: { ...options.loader, '.svg': 'text' } }),

After that, import icon from './icon.svg' gives you the file's text, ready for inu.icons.svg(icon).

#Commands

Commands that talk to the phone go through adb and accept -s <serial> to pick a device. The app must be running, with plugins enabled and not in safe mode.

#Why verify exists

Routines are compiled to bytecode, which nobody wants to read. inu verify dist/my-plugin.inu.js takes the source recorded next to each routine, compiles it again with the same compiler and compares the result with the bytecode in the file. A mismatch means the routine does not do what its source says. This check covers the routine body only: the values it captures come from ordinary JavaScript around it, which you still review like any other code.

#Choosing an id

• Use something unique that you control: com.github.yourname.pluginname, io.yourdomain.plugin.
• Use lowercase letters, digits, dots, dashes and underscores.
• Keep it for the life of the plugin. If the id changes, the app sees a different plugin: it will not update the old one, and the old one's data stays behind.

For plugins published to the entinyGram channel, the bot enforces the same shape (3 to 64 characters from a-z, 0-9, ., _, -) and reserves the entinygram. prefix for the project's own plugins. See Publishing.

#Project layout that scales

my-plugins/
  inu.config.ts
  package.json
  tsconfig.json
  src/
    translate-helper/
      index.ts        plugin entry
      settings.ts     the settings page
      i18n.ts         texts for several languages
    shared/
      format.ts       code used by several plugins

A simple rule keeps plugins fast to load: do cheap work at the top level, register what you need, and leave heavy work for callbacks. Top level evaluation has a time limit, and for plugins that start early the app waits for your registrations. See The engine.

#Source and further reading

• sdk/cli/src/utils/config.ts: the inu.config.ts schema
• sdk/cli/src/utils/manifest.ts: the manifest schema, the header writer and the grant checks
• sdk/cli/src/commands: what each command does
• plugins/2gis/inu.config.ts: a small real configuration with withEntiny
• getting-started.md in Inugram