Based on the concept of webpack module federation, dynamic plugins are loaded and interpreted from remote sources at runtime. The standard way to deliver and expose dynamic plugins to Console is through OLM operators.
Dynamic plugins are decoupled from the Console application, which means both plugins and Console can be released, installed and upgraded independently from each other. To ensure compatibility with Console and other plugins, each plugin must declare its dependencies using semantic version ranges.
Extension Documentation - Detailed documentation of every available console extension point.
API Documentation - Detailed documentation of hooks, components, and other APIs provided by this package.
OpenShift Console Dynamic Plugins feature page - A high level overview of dynamic plugins in relation to OLM operators and cluster administration.
Example project structure:
dynamic-demo-plugin/
├── src/
├── console-extensions.json
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── webpack.config.ts
Package Name | Description |
---|---|
@openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk |
Provides core APIs, types and utilities used by dynamic plugins at runtime. |
@openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk-webpack |
Provides webpack plugin ConsoleRemotePlugin used to build all dynamic plugin assets. |
@openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk-internal |
Internal package exposing additional code. |
@openshift-console/plugin-shared |
Provides reusable components and utility functions to build OCP dynamic plugins. Compatible with multiple versions of OpenShift Console. |
Not all NPM packages are fully compatible with all versions of the Console. This table will help align compatible versions of the SDK Packages to versions of the OpenShift Console.
Console Version | SDK Package | Last Package Version |
---|---|---|
4.12.x | @openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk |
Latest |
@openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk-webpack |
Latest | |
4.11.x | @openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk |
0.0.12 |
@openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk-webpack |
0.0.7 | |
4.10.x [Tech] | @openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk |
0.0.3 |
@openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk-webpack |
0.0.6 | |
4.9.x [Dev] | @openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk |
0.0.0-alpha18 |
Notes
- [Tech] - Release 4.10 was Tech Preview for the SDK packages
- [Dev] - Release 4.9 was Dev Preview for the SDK packages
Plugin metadata is declared via the consolePlugin
object.
{
"name": "dynamic-demo-plugin",
"version": "0.0.0",
"private": true,
// scripts, dependencies, devDependencies, ...
"consolePlugin": {
"name": "console-demo-plugin",
"version": "0.0.0",
"displayName": "Console Demo Plugin",
"description": "Plasma reactors online. Initiating hyper drive.",
"exposedModules": {
"barUtils": "./utils/bar"
},
"dependencies": {
"@console/pluginAPI": "*"
}
}
}
consolePlugin.name
is the plugin's unique identifier. It should be the same as metadata.name
of the corresponding ConsolePlugin
resource used to represent the plugin on the cluster.
Therefore, it must be a valid
DNS subdomain name.
consolePlugin.version
must be semver compliant.
Dynamic plugins can expose modules representing additional code to be referenced, loaded and executed
at runtime. A separate webpack chunk is generated for
each entry in consolePlugin.exposedModules
object. Exposed modules are resolved relative to plugin's
webpack context
option.
The @console/pluginAPI
dependency is mandatory and refers to Console versions this dynamic plugin is
compatible with. The consolePlugin.dependencies
object may also refer to other dynamic plugins that
are required for this dynamic plugin to work correctly.
See ConsolePluginMetadata
type for details on the consolePlugin
object and its schema.
Declares all extensions contributed by the plugin.
[
{
"type": "console.flag",
"properties": {
"handler": { "$codeRef": "barUtils.testHandler" }
}
},
{
"type": "console.flag/model",
"properties": {
"flag": "EXAMPLE",
"model": {
"group": "kubevirt.io",
"version": "v1alpha3",
"kind": "ExampleModel"
}
}
}
]
Depending on extension type
, the properties
object may contain code references, encoded as object
literals { $codeRef: string }
. When loading dynamic plugins, encoded code references are transformed
into functions () => Promise<T>
used to load the referenced objects.
The $codeRef
value should be formatted as either moduleName.exportName
(referring to a named export)
or moduleName
(referring to the default
export). Only the plugin's exposed modules (i.e. the keys of
consolePlugin.exposedModules
object) may be used in code references.
Dynamic plugins must be built with webpack in order for their modules to seamlessly integrate with Console application at runtime. Use webpack version 5+ which includes native support for module federation.
All dynamic plugin assets are managed via webpack plugin ConsoleRemotePlugin
.
const { ConsoleRemotePlugin } = require('@openshift-console/dynamic-plugin-sdk-webpack');
const config = {
// 'entry' is optional, but unrelated to plugin assets
plugins: [new ConsoleRemotePlugin()],
// ... rest of webpack configuration
};
export default config;
ConsoleRemotePlugin
has no configuration options; it automatically detects your plugin's metadata and
extension declarations and generates the corresponding assets.
Building the above example plugin produces the following assets:
dynamic-demo-plugin/dist/
├── plugin-entry.js
├── plugin-manifest.json
└── utils_bar_ts-chunk.js
plugin-manifest.json
: dynamic plugin manifest. Contains both metadata and extension declarations to
be parsed and interpreted by Console at runtime. This is the first plugin asset loaded by Console.
plugin-entry.js
: webpack container entry chunk.
Provides asynchronous access to specific modules exposed by the plugin. Loaded right after the plugin
manifest.
utils_bar_ts-chunk.js
: webpack chunk for the exposed barUtils
module. Loaded via the plugin entry
chunk when needed.
Run Bridge locally and instruct it to proxy e.g. /api/plugins/console-demo-plugin
requests directly
to your local plugin asset server (web server hosting the plugin's generated assets):
./bin/bridge -plugins console-demo-plugin=http://localhost:9001/
Your plugin should start loading automatically upon Console application startup. Inspect the value of
window.SERVER_FLAGS.consolePlugins
to see the list of plugins which Console loads upon its startup.
Note running plugins in this way will likely result in incorrect data in the Cluster Dashboard Dynamic Plugins popover.
Console operator detects available plugins through
ConsolePlugin
resources on the cluster. It also maintains a cluster-wide list of currently enabled
plugins via spec.plugins
field in its config (Console
resource instance named cluster
).
When the spec.plugins
value in Console operator config changes, Console operator computes the actual
list of plugins to load in Console as an intersection between all available plugins vs. plugins marked
as enabled. Updating Console operator config triggers a new rollout of the Console (Bridge) deployment.
Bridge reads the computed list of plugins upon its startup and injects this list into Console web page
via SERVER_FLAGS
object.
Console users can disable specific or all dynamic plugins that would normally get loaded upon Console
startup via disable-plugins
query parameter. The value of this parameter is either a comma separated
list of plugin names (disable specific plugins) or an empty string (disable all plugins).
- Loading multiple plugins with the same
name
(but with a differentversion
) is not allowed. - Console will override certain modules to ensure a single version of React etc. is loaded and used by the application.
- Enabling a plugin makes all of its extensions available for consumption. Individual extensions cannot be enabled or disabled separately.
- Failure to resolve a code reference (unable to load module, missing module export etc.) will disable the plugin.
To see the latest published version of the given package:
yarn info <package-name> dist-tags --json | jq .data.latest
Before publishing, it's recommended to log into your npm user account:
npm login
Build all distributable SDK packages into dist
directory:
yarn build
Finally, publish relevant packages to npm registry:
yarn publish dist/<pkg> --no-git-tag-version --new-version <version>
If the given package doesn't exist in npm registry, add --access public
to yarn publish
command.
Certain packages are currently in the shared plugin dependencies that will be removed in the future. Plugin authors will need to manually add these items to their configurations or chose other options:
- react-helmet