tauri-plugin

Active contributors: Lucas Fernandes Nogueira, Amr Bashir

Purpose

crates/tauri-plugin provides the build-time and runtime helpers that Tauri plugin authors [build-dependencies]-on. Plugins are reusable libraries (e.g. tauri-plugin-fs, tauri-plugin-store) that expose Rust commands, JS bindings, and ACL files. This crate gives them a build() helper to scaffold permissions and a Builder to produce a tauri::plugin::Plugin.

The crate intentionally has two non-overlapping feature surfaces, so the same crate can be pulled into a plugin's [build-dependencies] (build-time helpers) and [dependencies] (runtime helpers) without dragging unwanted deps into either.

Directory layout

crates/tauri-plugin/
├── Cargo.toml
├── src/
│   ├── lib.rs              # feature-gated re-exports
│   ├── build.rs            # build-time helpers (feature = "build")
│   └── runtime.rs          # runtime helpers (feature = "runtime")

Key items

Symbol	Feature	What it does
Builder (build-time)	build	Walks permissions/ of the plugin crate, validates each TOML, generates JSON Schemas, writes manifest.
mobile::* helpers	build	Mobile-friendly globs for the plugin's Android/iOS native sources.
Re-exports of common types	runtime	Shorter import paths (tauri::plugin::Builder, etc.) for plugin authors.

How it works

A plugin crate's build.rs typically calls:

fn main() {
    tauri_plugin::Builder::new(&["all"])
        .build();
}

This:

1. Parses every TOML under permissions/.
2. Validates identifiers (via tauri_utils::acl::Identifier).
3. Writes a generated JSON Schema for the plugin's permissions to OUT_DIR so tauri-build and tooling can validate apps that use the plugin.
4. Emits a Cargo manifest entry that tauri-build reads when it resolves the downstream app's ACL.

At runtime the plugin crate uses tauri::plugin::Builder<R> (re-exported from here) to declare commands, lifecycle hooks, init JS, and config schema.

graph TD
    PluginBuild["plugin/build.rs<br/>(downstream plugin)"] -->|"tauri_plugin::Builder"| GenSchemas["JSON schemas + manifest"]
    GenSchemas --> AppBuild["tauri-build (in user app)"]
    PluginRuntime["plugin/src/lib.rs"] -->|"tauri::plugin::Builder"| Plugin["tauri::plugin::Plugin"]
    Plugin --> App["tauri::Builder::plugin(...)"]

Integration points

• Up: Tauri plugin crates (in this repo's siblings, e.g. tauri-apps/plugins-workspace).
• Down: tauri-utils (build-time validation), tauri (runtime types).

Entry points for modification

Goal	Start here
Validate a new permission attribute	crates/tauri-plugin/src/build.rs plus tauri-utils/src/acl/
Add a build-time helper for plugin authors	crates/tauri-plugin/src/build.rs
Add a runtime helper	crates/tauri-plugin/src/runtime.rs

See systems/plugin-system for the runtime model and systems/acl-and-capabilities for the permission lifecycle.