meta-sort/docs/plugin-system.md

Plugin System (Deprecated — See Container Plugins)

This document is a historical pointer. The in-process plugin system it originally described — plugins/<id>/{manifest.yml,index.ts} directories loaded via dynamic import() inside meta-sort-core — has been removed. All plugins now run as Docker containers and communicate over HTTP.

For the current design, read:

• containerized-plugin-architecture.md — full container plugin design (HTTP contract, lifecycle, callbacks, KV access).
• plugin-task-queue-architecture.md — how plugin work is dispatched across the fast / background queues.
• Root CLAUDE.md (Plugin Development and Runtime Plugin Configuration sections) — operational quickstart.
• Plugin sources at packages/plugins/metamesh-plugin-* (separate submodules) — file-info, ffmpeg, filename-parser, jellyfin-nfo, tmdb, anime-detector, language, subtitle, subtitle-extractor, torrent, fullhash.

What survived from the old design

The Plugin / PluginContext / PluginLifecycleContext / PluginKVStore interfaces in src/plugin-engine/types.ts are still exported, but the container-only PluginManager (src/plugin-engine/PluginManager.ts) never constructs an in-process Plugin instance — manifests, lifecycle, and execution are owned by ContainerManager and ContainerPluginScheduler under src/container-plugins/. Treat the Plugin-interface types as vestigial and do not write new code against them.

Why the change

Limitation of in-process plugins	Container model
Heavy native deps (FFmpeg, Whisper, ML libs) inflated the meta-sort image	Each plugin ships its own image
All plugins had to be TypeScript / Node	Any language with an HTTP server
A crashing plugin took down meta-sort	Plugin crashes are isolated; meta-sort restarts the container
Plugin updates required redeploying meta-sort	Plugins are versioned and pulled independently

See containerized-plugin-architecture.md for the migration rationale and the HTTP contract container plugins must implement.