Plugins

You can easily extend QueryCat functionality by installing plugins. Plugins allow to add more functions for data processing. There are commands you can use for plugins management:

  • plugin list. List all local and installed plugins.
  • plugin install <name>. Install the plugin.
  • plugin remove <name>. Remove the plugin.
  • plugin update <name>. Update the plugin. If you provide * as name all plugins will be updated.
  • plugin install-proxy. Download plugin proxy executable from GitHub.

Note: Before use, your should install the special plugin proxy using plugin install-proxy command. It is the special software needed to run plugin .dll files.

Make sure you keep you plugins versions up to date.

Locations

The plugin files are DLLs or NuGet packages that must contain "Plugin" within name. For example, QueryCat.Plugins.Logs.nupkg, Plugin.AWS.dll are correct names. The application searchs plugins within following locations:

  • Local application data directory. For example, /home/user/.local/share/qcat/plugins/ for Unix or C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\qcat\plugins\ for Windows.
  • Current executable directory.
  • Within "plugins" directory of current executable directory.
  • With --plugin-dirs application argument.

The official (and default) plugin storage can be found here: https://storage.yandexcloud.net/querycat/.

Proxy

Proxy contains the full version of .NET platform. Here is the schema how plugins are loaded:

QueryCat <-> (Thrift protocol) <-> Proxy <-> (.NET Reflection) <-> Plugin Assembly