hyprland-wiki/pages/Plugins/Development/Plugin-Guidelines.md

This page documents the recommended guidelines for making a stable and neat plugin.

{{< toc >}}

## Making your plugin compatible with hyprpm
In order for your plugin to be installable by hyprpm, you need a manifest.

hyprpm will parse hyprload manifests just fine, but it's recommended to use the more
powerful hyprpm manifest.

Make a file in the root of your repository called `hyprpm.toml`.

### Repository metadata
At the beginning, put some metadata about your plugin:
```toml
[repository]
name = "MyPlugin"
authors = ["Me"]
commit_pins = [
    ["3bb9c7c5cf4f2ee30bf821501499f2308d616f94", "efee74a7404495dbda70205824d6e9fc923ccdae"],
    ["d74607e414dcd16911089a6d4b6aeb661c880923", "efee74a7404495dbda70205824d6e9fc923ccdae"]
]
```
`name` and `authors` are required. `commit_pins` are optional. See a bit below for what commit pins are.

### Plugins
For each plugin, make a category like this:
```toml
[plugin-name]
description = "An epic plugin that will change the world!"
authors = ["Me"]
output = "plugin.so"
build = [
    "make all"
]
```
`description`, `authors` are optional. `output` and `build` are required.
`build` are the commands that hyprpm will run in the root of the repo to build the plugin.
Every command will reset the cwd to the repo root.
`output` is the path to the output `.so` file from the root of the repo.

### Commit pins
Commit pins allow you to manage versioning of your plugin. they are pairs of `hash,hash`, where the first
hash is the hyprland hash, and the second is your plugin's hash.

For example, in the manifest above, `d74607e414dcd16911089a6d4b6aeb661c880923` corresponds to hyprland's `0.33.1`
release, which means that if someone is running `0.33.1`, hyprpm will reset your plugin to commit hash
`efee74a7404495dbda70205824d6e9fc923ccdae`.

It's recommended you add a pin for each hyprland release. If no pin matches, latest git will be used.

## Formatting
Although Hyprland plugins obviously are not _required_ to follow Hyprland's formatting, naming conventions, etc.
it might be a good idea to keep your code consistent. See `.clang-format` in the Hyprland repo.

## Usage of the API
It's always advised to use the API entries whenever possible, as they are guaranteed stability as long as the version
matches.

It is, of course, possible to use the internal methods by just including the proper headers,
but it should not be treated as the default way of doing things.

Hyprland's internal methods may be changed, removed or added without any prior notice. It is worth nothing though
that methods that "seem" fundamental, like e.g. `focusWindow` or `mouseMoveUnified` probably are, and are
unlikely to change their general method of functioning.

## Function Hooks
Function hooks allow your plugin to intercept all calls to a function of your choice. They are to be treated as
a last resort, as they are the easiest thing to break between updates.

Always prefer using Event Hooks.

## Threads
The Wayland event loop is strictly single-threaded. It is not recommended to create threads in your code, unless
they are fully detached from the Hyprland process. (e.g. saving a file)