Aerie & Phoenix Plugin Ecosystem

[lklyne]

Goal
Also referred to as the Aerie Extended Universe, the goal here is to adapt Aerie to support a more robust plugin ecosystem. Draw inspiration from Obsidian.md, and explore what implications this might have on the front end and UI.

Current Problem
The Sequence Language Adaptation is growing in power and complexity to support different mission needs. While customization options continue to mature, we don't have a clear story of how this is handled within Aerie.

Ideas

• Create a clear api for plugin developers to build extensions on top of Aerie
• Create a library for users to browse community plugins
• Create a ui within Aerie for users to manage installed plugins

Open Questions

What is a plugin?

• What's the foundation of Phoenix / Aerie thats not a plugin
• What are the core plugins that augment this
• What are community plugins

Are plugins just for Phoenix? Just for Aerie?

[lklyne]

Plugin creation

• API for modifying and adding to core layout
  • Plugins can add pages / tabs / sections
  • Plugins can create their own panel and add it as an option to panel swapper
  • Trigger events like toast, modal, warning
  • Add section to the bottom status bar / console]
• API for creating new functions / actions
  • How can plugins interact with eachother?
  • How can plugins interact with the aerie ui?
• Ability to call pre-built / core functions and custom built stuff
• Dev and debugging workflow

Using plugins

• Library of plugins or community section on Aerie website
• Settings section within aerie to manage and install plugins
  • Workflow for saving and installing
• Settings and config section for individual plugins
• In the future, we may want to consider an admin section for managing plugins at a restricted or deployment level
• Optional options for theming?

Building blocks needed

• Docs and plugin starting template
• Re-usable UI elements that can be used in plugin creation (we have this already, but may want to consider improving)
• Settings section within Aerie/Phoenix for configuring
• May require some rethinking of our overall "page" architecture. Consider tabs instead of the full pages
• Will need to get clear on the different terms for layout items (obsidian calls panels "leafs")
• Nice to have: command palette that plugins can augment