plugins

Documentation

Overview

Read docs/plugins.md first for an overview of kustomize plugins.

BUILTIN PLUGIN CONFIGURATION

There are two kinds of plugins, Go plugins (shared object library) and exec plugins (independent binary). For performance and standardized testing reasons, all builtin plugins are Go plugins (not exec plugins).

Using "SecretGenerator" as an example in what follows.

The plugin config file looks like

apiVersion: builtin
kind: SecretGenerator
metadata:
  name: whatever
otherField1: whatever
otherField2: whatever
...

The apiVersion must be 'builtin'.

The kind is the CamelCase name of the plugin.

The source for a builtin plugin must be at:

repo=$GOPATH/src/sigs.k8s.io/kustomize
${repo}/plugin/builtin/LOWERCASE(${kind})/${kind}

k8s wants 'kind' values to follow CamelCase, while Go style doesn't like but does allow such names.

The lowercased value of kind is used as the name of the directory holding the plugin, its test, and any optional associated files (possibly a go.mod file).

BUILTIN PLUGIN GENERATION

The `pluginator` program is a code generator that converts kustomize generator (G) and/or transformer (T) Go plugins to statically linkable code.

It arises from following requirements:

• extension kustomize does two things - generate or transform k8s resources. Plugins let users write their own G&T's without having to fork kustomize and learn its internals.

• dogfooding A G&T extension framework one can trust should be used by its authors to deliver builtin G&T's.

• distribution kustomize should be distributable via `go get` and should run where Go programs are expected to run.

The extension requirement led to building a framework that accommodates writing a G or T as either

• an 'exec' plugin (any executable file runnable as a kustomize subprocess), or

• as a Go plugin - see https://golang.org/pkg/plugin.

The dogfooding (and an implicit performance requirement) requires a 'builtin' G or T to be written as a Go plugin.

The distribution ('go get') requirement demands conversion of Go plugins to statically linked code, hence this program.

TO GENERATE CODE

repo=$GOPATH/src/sigs.k8s.io/kustomize
cd $repo/plugin/builtin
go generate ./...

This creates

$repo/api/plugins/builtins/SecretGenerator.go

etc.

Generated plugins are used in kustomize via

package whatever
import sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/plugins/builtins
...
g := builtin.NewSecretGenerator()
g.Config(h, k)
resources, err := g.Generate()
err = g.Transform(resources)
// Eventually emit resources.