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Plugin Manager

The plugin manager is the internal service that loads plugins discovered by the Self Describing Environment. Platform repositories normally do not construct or dispatch the plugin manager themselves; Stuart invocables do that work.

For an end-to-end authoring guide with complete descriptors, Python modules, configuration, and usage examples, see Creating Plugins in a Platform Repository.

Plugin types

Plugin type is determined by the interface implemented by the loaded class.

UefiBuildPlugin

IUefiBuildPlugin provides do_pre_build() and do_post_build() callbacks for stuart_build. Pre-build callbacks run after PlatformPreBuild(). Post-build callbacks run after the firmware build and PlatformPostBuild(). Plugin ordering is not guaranteed.

UefiHelperPlugin

IUefiHelperPlugin registers functions on a shared helper object. Build code can call registered helpers through UefiBuilder.Helper, and CI build plugins receive the same helper object as their PLMHelper argument.

CiBuildPlugin

ICiBuildPlugin represents a CI task or test. stuart_ci_build runs active CI plugins for each selected package and applicable target, records their results in the JUnit report, and passes each plugin its merged repository and package configuration.

DscProcessorPlugin

IDscProcessorPlugin is an experimental interface for transforming the active DSC. It is not currently enabled in the standard build flow.

How loading works

  1. The Self Describing Environment scans the workspace for plugin descriptor files.
  2. It filters descriptors to the active scopes supplied by the settings manager.
  3. The plugin manager imports the descriptor's module, constructs its named class, and groups the instance by its implemented interface.
  4. The active invocable requests and dispatches the relevant plugin type. Helper plugins are dispatched during initialization so they can register their functions.

The standard plugin types are dispatched by Stuart. Custom invocables can use the plugin manager directly when they intentionally define a new plugin contract, but platform build and CI plugins should use the standard interfaces.

Disabling plugins

Set <ModuleName>=skip before plugin loading to disable an individual plugin. For CI-specific filtering, including package-level skip: true and --disable-all, see Continuous Integration with Stuart.