Make plugin loading clear

[SkeLLLa]

Nowadays plugin loading is kind of "magic" that's hidden deep inside the code of verdaccio.

Plugin installation (especially in dockerized env) does not work. If you install plugin globally verdaccio doesn't see it. If you try to install it into verdaccio folder for some reason after that it couldn't load lodash, express, etc.

Also it's not possible or rather hard to load some forked plugin.

Proposition:
Make a config section where plugins can be directly configured with path to them, etc.

[DanielRuf]

Hi @SkeLLLa,

What exactly do you mean with the following?

Make a config section where plugins can be directly configured with path to them, etc.

[juanpicado]

I'm also curious to know which issues are you facing using plugins with Docker images. However, we have working examples here https://github.com/verdaccio/docker-examples

[SkeLLLa]

@DanielRuf I mean to have some kind of dictionary where users can specify what plugins they want to load and from where to load them.
For example, let's say I've added some customization into some existing verdaccio plugin (verdaccio-audit for example). And I've decided to name it foobar. So what I'm talking about is:

{
  plugins: [
    {name: 'verdaccio-audit': dir: '/home/user/foobar'}
  }
}

So here we'll load some code from /home/user/foobar directory and use it as 'verdaccio-audit' module.
Also if for some reason we have some other plugins in node_modules or elsewhere verdaccio will not use them, until they will be specified in plugins section.
If no dir specified it may look for this module in default location (e.g. in node_modules)

@juanpicado There's only one way when all's up and running. So when you're using basic docker image of verdaccio you'll need:

1. Install dev dependencies via npm i.
2. Install plugins only to verdaccio working directroy. (e.g. npm i verdaccio-audit). Global installation doesn't work., installing into/verdaccio/plugins directory may not work in some cases.
3. Afterwards run npm run code:docker-build again. Elsewere you'll get a lot of weird module not found errors.
4. Optionally remove dev dependencies npm prune production.

[juanpicado]

Install plugins only to verdaccio working directroy. (e.g. npm i verdaccio-audit). Global installation doesn't work., installing into/verdaccio/plugins directory may not work in some cases.

Thanks for the reply, but I'm still confused about the reason of this request, does the following example does not work for you?

// Dockerfile

FROM verdaccio/verdaccio:3

RUN npm i && npm install verdaccio-xxx-plugin-xxx-name

That extends the base image and you are able to install globally other packages.

Why modify the verdaccio Dockerfile directly? 🤔 I'd be great to know more about your approach.