Plugins

Overview

Plugins are a way to extend the functionality of Avo.

Light layer

Avo exposes a light layer for extending it: two boot/request hooks you can use to extend the Rails app, plus a few Avo APIs to add scripts and stylesheets.

Register the plugin

The way we do it is through an initializer. We mostly use the engine.rb file to register the plugin.

# lib/avo/feed_view/engine.rb
module Avo
  module FeedView
    class Engine < ::Rails::Engine
      isolate_namespace Avo::FeedView

      initializer "avo-feed-view.init" do
        # Avo will run this hook on boot time
        ActiveSupport.on_load(:avo_boot) do
          # Register the plugin
          Avo.plugin_manager.register :feed_view

          # Register the mounting point
          Avo.plugin_manager.mount_engine Avo::FeedView::Engine, at: "/feed_view"
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

This will add the plugin to a list of plugins which Avo will run the hooks on.

Hook into Avo

module Avo
  module FeedView
    class Engine < ::Rails::Engine
      isolate_namespace Avo::FeedView

      initializer "avo-feed-view.init" do
        ActiveSupport.on_load(:avo_boot) do
          Avo.plugin_manager.register :feed_view

          # Add some concerns
          Avo::Resources::Base.include Avo::FeedView::Concerns::FeedViewConcern

          # Remove some concerns
          Avo::Resources::Base.included_modules.delete(Avo::Concerns::SOME_CONCERN)

          # Add asset files to be loaded by Avo
          # These assets will be added to Avo's `application.html.erb` layout file
          Avo.asset_manager.add_javascript "/avo-dashboards-assets/avo_dashboards"
          Avo.asset_manager.add_stylesheet "/avo-kanban-assets/avo_kanban"
        end

        ActiveSupport.on_load(:avo_init) do
          # Run some code on each request
          Avo::FeedView::Current.something = VALUE
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Hooks

-> avo_boot

The avo_boot hook is called when the parent Rails application boots up. This is where you can register your scripts and stylesheets and also add your functionality to Avo.

We use it heavily to add our own concerns to the Avo::BaseResource and Avo::BaseController classes and even extend the Avo::ApplicationController class.

-> avo_init

The avo_init hook is called on every request done inside Avo. You can use this hook to attach some code to the Avo::App.context object or do other things.

INFO

We don't use it as much in our plugins as we do in the avo_boot hook.

Registration API

Everything a plugin contributes is registered through Avo.plugin_manager, from inside the avo_boot hook so it runs once on boot.

-> register(name, priority: 10)

Adds the plugin to Avo's plugin list so its hooks run and other plugins can detect it. See Register the plugin above. A lower priority runs earlier.

Avo.plugin_manager.register :feed_view

-> register_view_type(name, component:, icon:, active_icon:, translation_key: nil)

Registers a new index view type (alongside the built-in table/grid/map views). This one has its own guide with a full example — see Custom view types.

-> register_field(method_name, klass)

Registers a custom field type so apps can use it in their resources by the method_name you give it. Use this when your plugin ships a field type in a gem — it's the plugin-author counterpart to Custom fields, which covers defining a field inside your own app.

# method_name is what apps call in their `fields` block: `field :price, as: :money`
Avo.plugin_manager.register_field :money, Avo::MoneyField::Fields::MoneyField

-> register_menu_item(name, &block)

Registers a custom menu DSL method that apps can then call inside config.main_menu / config.profile_menu. The block is evaluated in the menu builder's context, so it can call link, resource, section, and the other menu builder methods.

This delegates to the avo-menu package; it's a no-op when that isn't installed, so you can register unconditionally.

Avo.plugin_manager.register_menu_item :feed do
  link "Feed", path: "/avo/feed"
end

-> installed?(name)

Returns whether a plugin registered under name is present. Use it to make your plugin adapt to what else is installed.

if Avo.plugin_manager.installed?(:avo_menu)
  # wire up menu integration
end

-> mount_engine(klass, at:)

Mounts your engine's routes inside Avo at the given path. See the Register the plugin example above.

Avo.plugin_manager.mount_engine Avo::FeedView::Engine, at: "/feed_view"

Add asset files

Plugins load their own JavaScript and CSS through Avo's AssetManager, which injects them into the <head> of Avo's layout. It exposes add_javascript, add_stylesheet, and register_stimulus_controller — see the Asset manager guide for details.

Using a middleware to surface asset files

One tricky thing to do with Rails Engines is to expose some asset files to the parent Rails app. The way we do it is by using a middleware that will serve the files from the Engine's app/assets/builds directory.

So app/assets/builds/feed_view.js from the feed_view engine will be served by the parent Rails app at /feed-view-assets/feed_view.js with the following middleware added to your engine.rb file.

module Avo
  module FeedView
    class Engine < ::Rails::Engine
      isolate_namespace Avo::FeedView

      initializer "avo-feed-view.init" do
        ActiveSupport.on_load(:avo_boot) do
          Avo.plugin_manager.register :feed_view
        end
      end

      config.app_middleware.use(
        Rack::Static,
        urls: ["/feed-view-assets"], # 👈 This is the path where the files will be served
        root: root.join("app", "assets", "builds") # 👈 This is the path where the files are located
      )
    end
  end
end

INFO

Avo doesn't compile the assets in any way, but just adds them to the layout file. This means that the assets should be compiled and ready for the browser to use them.

We use jsbundling-rails with esbuild to compile the assets before packaging them in the gem file.

Please check out the scripts we use.

Create your own plugin

We don't yet have a generator for that but what we do is to create a new Rails Engine and add the plugin to it.

1. Run rails plugin new feed-view
2. Add the plugin to the engine.rb file
3. Register the plugin to the lib/avo/feed_view/engine.rb file
4. Optionally add assets
5. Add the plugin to your app's Gemfile using the path option to test it out

For a full example of a plugin that registers a new index view type, see Custom view types.