Plugin SDK

@paperclipai/plugin-sdk is the worker-side authoring kit for Paperclip plugins. Import it from your plugin's worker entrypoint to declare a plugin, subscribe to host events, register jobs and data feeds, run RPC against the host, and reach the managed database, secrets, state, and the rest of the Paperclip API surface.

This page is for plugin authors: the developers writing the code that ships inside a plugin package. If you only run plugins — install, configure, enable, disable — you want Administration → Plugins instead.

The plugin runtime is in alpha. The SDK still ships breaking changes between Paperclip releases; pin your @paperclipai/plugin-sdk and @paperclipai/shared versions and re-read this page when you upgrade.

When to use

Reach for the plugin SDK when you want to:

• Add a long-running worker that reacts to Paperclip events (issue.created, agent.run.completed, …).
• Expose new pages, widgets, launchers, or settings inside the Paperclip UI.
• Register scheduled jobs, webhooks, tools, or managed agents and routines.
• Ship a managed database namespace alongside your plugin code.
• Bridge a new environment driver (custom sandbox / execution backend) into Paperclip.

When not to use

• Teaching Paperclip a new AI runtime. Use an adapter instead — adapters speak the per-run wire protocol; plugins extend the server.
• Adding instructions an agent should follow. Write a company skill — those are markdown an agent loads at run time, not server code.
• One-off scripts. A plugin needs to be installed, enabled, and managed. For ad-hoc automation, prefer the REST API or the CLI.

Package surface

The SDK package exposes two entrypoints:

• @paperclipai/plugin-sdk — the worker-side surface documented on this page. Default for definePlugin, runWorker, PluginContext, the protocol helpers, and all manifest/protocol types.
• @paperclipai/plugin-sdk/ui — UI-bundle surface for plugin UI contributions. Out of scope for this page; see Administration → Plugins for the operator-facing view.

All identifiers below are exported from @paperclipai/plugin-sdk. They are the source of truth — copy names verbatim.

Public API

Plugin definition

Types: PluginDefinition, PaperclipPlugin, PluginHealthDiagnostics, PluginConfigChangeContext, PluginConfigValidationResult, PluginWebhookInput, PluginApiRequestInput, PluginApiResponse, RunWorkerOptions, WorkerRpcHostOptions, WorkerRpcHost.

Knowing which company's config changed

When an operator saves your plugin's configuration, the host calls your optional onConfigChanged hook so you can apply the change without a worker restart. Plugin configuration in Paperclip is company-scoped, and a worker is spawned once per plugin — not once per company — so the interesting question is always "whose config is this?"

onConfigChanged now answers it. The hook takes a second argument:

onConfigChanged?(
  newConfig: Record<string, unknown>,
  context?: PluginConfigChangeContext,
): Promise<void>;

PluginConfigChangeContext has a single field, companyId: string | null — the company whose configuration changed, or null for an instance/global save that is not bound to a specific company.

You will also see this hook fire earlier than you might expect. When your worker starts, the host replays each configured company's stored config through the same configChanged path an operator save uses. That is what makes a proactive plugin possible: one that does its company work from setup() rather than waiting for an event, and so has no company-scoped invocation to read ctx.config.get(companyId) inside. The host also authorizes your plugin's configured companies as the worker's proactive scopes, so worker-to-host calls made from your own timers and loops resolve to one of those companies instead of being rejected for missing company context. Any other company stays denied.

The startup replay is best-effort, so it is a head start rather than a contract: a worker that doesn't implement onConfigChanged simply keeps reading config at runtime with ctx.config.get(companyId). Because the same config can be replayed more than once, make your onConfigChanged idempotent.

Declaring multi-company support with multiCompanyConfig

Because that replay fans out every configured company, a plugin that keeps one worker-global config would quietly end up running as whichever company arrived last. That is a cross-tenant mix-up — one company's token applied to another company's traffic — so the host fails closed rather than letting it happen.

Set multiCompanyConfig: true on your plugin definition when your worker genuinely serves more than one company from a single process, and key your per-company state on context.companyId:

import { definePlugin, runWorker, type PluginLogger } from "@paperclipai/plugin-sdk";

const configByCompany = new Map<string, Record<string, unknown>>();
let logger: PluginLogger | null = null;

const plugin = definePlugin({
  multiCompanyConfig: true,

  async setup(ctx) {
    logger = ctx.logger;
  },

  async onConfigChanged(newConfig, context) {
    if (!context?.companyId) {
      // Instance-wide save — nothing company-specific to rebind.
      return;
    }
    configByCompany.set(context.companyId, newConfig);
    logger?.info("Applied config for one company", { companyId: context.companyId });
  },
});

export default plugin;
runWorker(plugin, import.meta.url);

Leave multiCompanyConfig off (the default) and your plugin is treated as single-tenant. "Fails closed" then means something specific: once a configChanged delivery has applied one company's config, a delivery carrying a different config for a different company is rejected with PLUGIN_RPC_ERROR_CODES.CROSS_TENANT_CONFIG instead of overwriting what is already applied. Re-delivering the same config under a different company id is treated as an idempotent replay and still allowed, so duplicate scope rows that embed identical config are harmless.

The companyId has always travelled on the wire — it is the optional companyId?: string | null field on ConfigChangedParams. What changed is that the SDK now hands it to your hook instead of dropping it.

Plugin context

PluginContext is the parameter your setup(ctx) receives. It exposes one client per concern, all imported from @paperclipai/plugin-sdk as types:

When you emit a metric with metrics.write (via PluginMetricsClient) or write a line with log (via PluginLogger), you can pass an optional companyId to scope that record to a company so it is cascade-deleted when the company is removed; omit it or pass null to keep the record at instance scope.

ctx.tracer lets you wrap a piece of work in a span so it shows up in the host's traces. You use it the same way as ctx.logger: call ctx.tracer.startSpan("my-work", { attributes: { … } }), set attributes or a status on the returned PluginSpan, and call end() when you're done. It's a deliberately minimal, OpenTelemetry-free contract — the SDK never pulls in @opentelemetry/api — and the host does the real recording. Two things to keep in mind: a span you open when tracing is off (or when there's no active host trace context) is a harmless no-op that records nothing, so you can always open one without guarding; and the host re-clamps every attribute at its trust boundary, so an attribute outside the host's allowlist never makes it onto a recorded span. If you need the default explicitly — say, to keep tests free of a real tracer — import the shared no-ops NOOP_PLUGIN_TRACER and NOOP_PLUGIN_SPAN.

Issue-domain helpers: PluginIssueMutationActor, PluginIssueRelationSummary, PluginIssueCheckoutOwnership, PluginIssueWakeupResult, PluginIssueWakeupBatchResult, PluginIssueRunSummary, PluginIssueApprovalSummary, PluginIssueCostSummary, PluginBudgetIncidentSummary, PluginIssueInvocationBlockSummary, PluginIssueOrchestrationSummary, PluginIssueSubtreeOptions, PluginIssueAssigneeSummary, PluginIssueSubtree, IssueDocumentSummary.

Workspace metadata for ctx.executionWorkspaces: PluginExecutionWorkspaceMetadata.

Agent-session helpers: AgentSession, AgentSessionEvent, AgentSessionSendResult. When you send a message with ctx.agents.sessions.sendMessage(...), the message field on the AgentSessionEvent you receive with eventType: "done" is the canonical final user-facing assistant reply for that run — or null when the run produced no reply text. That is the field to relay back to whoever asked; you no longer need to reassemble it from the "chunk" events. An eventType: "error" event carries a run-status string in message instead.

Workspace, event, and scope helpers: PluginWorkspace, PluginEvent, EventFilter, ScopeKey, PluginJobContext.

Manifest types

Plugin manifests are validated against types re-exported from @paperclipai/shared. Importing them from the SDK gives you a single dependency:

Constant enum types: PluginStatus, PluginCategory, PluginCapability, PluginUiSlotType, PluginUiSlotEntityType, PluginLauncherPlacementZone, PluginLauncherAction, PluginLauncherBounds, PluginLauncherRenderEnvironment, PluginStateScopeKind, PluginJobStatus, PluginJobRunStatus, PluginJobRunTrigger, PluginWebhookDeliveryStatus, PluginDatabaseCoreReadTable, PluginDatabaseMigrationStatus, PluginDatabaseNamespaceMode, PluginDatabaseNamespaceStatus, PluginApiRouteAuthMode, PluginApiRouteCheckoutPolicy, PluginApiRouteMethod, PluginEventType, PluginBridgeErrorCode, JsonSchema.

Managed resources

"Managed resources" is the umbrella term for plugin-owned Paperclip records that the host materialises per company: managed agents, projects, routines, and skills. You declare them once on the manifest under top-level agents[], projects[], routines[], and skills[], and the host creates, relinks, or returns the existing record for the current companyId at runtime.

Reach for managed resources when your plugin needs durable business objects the operator should see in the board — a named worker, a stable project home for plugin-generated issues, a recurring routine that produces visible task trails, or a reusable skill surfaced on managed agents. Keep jobs[] for plugin runtime maintenance that does not need a board-visible task trail.

Each kind requires its own capability (agents.managed, projects.managed, routines.managed, skills.managed) and is reached through a dedicated client on PluginContext:

await ctx.projects.managed.reconcile("research", companyId);
await ctx.agents.managed.reconcile("researcher", companyId);
await ctx.routines.managed.reconcile("weekly-brief", companyId);
await ctx.skills.managed.reconcile("weekly-brief-skills", companyId);

The relevant methods are get(), reconcile(), and reset() — plus update() and run() on routines. reconcile() creates the missing resource, relinks a recoverable binding, or returns the existing resource. reset() reapplies the manifest defaults when the operator wants to restore the plugin's suggested configuration.

Dependencies between managed resources are declared with PluginManagedResourceRef — for example a routine's assigneeRef and projectRef. Reconcile the referenced agent and project before reconciling the routine; if a ref is still missing, the routine resolution reports missing_refs instead of guessing.

Keys are stable identity. Renaming agentKey, projectKey, routineKey, or skillKey after publishing creates a new managed resource from the host's point of view.

For the full manifest example and authoring rules, see the parent doc/plugins/PLUGIN_AUTHORING_GUIDE.md; the declaration types listed under Manifest types above are the source of truth for what each managed entry accepts.

Responding to interactions and approvals

If your plugin bridges Paperclip to somewhere people already work — a chat app, a ticketing tool — the interesting half is the round trip back. An agent asks a question or requests a confirmation, someone answers it where they saw it, and the decision has to land on the board exactly as if they had clicked the button in Paperclip themselves.

ctx.issues and ctx.approvals give you that, plus the ability to read the files people attached along the way. All of it is capability-gated, and the write halves all ask you to name the human the decision belongs to.

A note on imports: the domain types these methods hand back — IssueThreadInteraction, Approval, IssueAttachment — come from @paperclipai/shared, not from the SDK's own export list. Import them from there.

Reading and resolving issue-thread interactions

Interactions are the decision cards an agent posts into an issue thread: suggested tasks, questions, confirmations. Your plugin could already create them; now it can read them back and resolve them.

input is { action: "accept" | "reject"; actorUserId?: string; reason?: string | null }.

const { interaction, applied } = await ctx.issues.respondInteraction(
  issueId,
  interactionId,
  { action: "accept", actorUserId, reason: null },
  companyId,
);

if (!applied) {
  ctx.logger.info("Interaction was already resolved", { status: interaction.status });
}

Three things worth planning for:

• actorUserId is optional in the type but required in practice. Resolving an interaction is a board-user action, so the host rejects the call when it is missing. It is not a value the host takes on trust either: it independently re-verifies that the user is an active human member of the issue's company at apply time, and rejects a member whose membershipRole is viewer, because the web app treats viewer access as read-only on exactly these routes. Your plugin can only ever act as an identity that could have taken the same action in Paperclip.
• applied tells you whether this call did the work. It is true when your call performed the resolution and false when the interaction had already converged to a resolved state. A duplicate button tap relayed from chat is therefore a safe no-op rather than an error, and the already-resolved interaction still comes back so you can render its final state.
• Accepting can wake the agent. When the resolved interaction's continuationPolicy is wake_assignee — or wake_assignee_on_accept and the decision was an accept — the host wakes the issue's assignee so the agent resumes, the same way it would after a decision made in the web app.

Deciding approvals

ctx.approvals is the new client for company approvals.

input on decide is { action: "approve" | "reject"; actorUserId?: string; decisionNote?: string | null }. The actorUserId rules and the meaning of applied are identical to respondInteraction above.

Two behaviours to know about:

• Payloads are redacted on the way out. list and get return approvals whose payload has been redacted host-side to match Paperclip's own approval read surface, so the bridge never hands your plugin secrets the web app itself hides from an approval reader.
• A fresh decision wakes the requester. When applied is true and the approval has a requestedByAgentId, the host wakes that agent so it resumes after the decision.

Reading attachments

options is { maxBytes?: number | null }. PluginIssueAttachmentContent is declared in the SDK's types.ts but is not currently re-exported as a name; it is reachable as the return type of getAttachmentContent, and it carries:

const attachments = await ctx.issues.listAttachments(issueId, companyId);

for (const attachment of attachments) {
  const content = await ctx.issues.getAttachmentContent(attachment.id, companyId, {
    maxBytes: 5 * 1024 * 1024,
  });
  if (!content) continue;

  ctx.logger.info("Read attachment", {
    originalFilename: content.originalFilename,
    contentType: content.contentType,
    byteSize: content.byteSize,
  });
}

getAttachmentContent hands you bytes, not a URL — the read goes through the capability-scoped host bridge, and the result has no URL surface of its own. A few consequences:

• Unknown and cross-company ids are indistinguishable. Both return null, by design, so the bridge is not an existence oracle across companies.
• maxBytes refuses rather than truncates. Pass it and the host throws when the stored size is over the cap, and throws again if the object turns out to exceed the cap mid-stream. You never receive a partial file that looks whole.
• Reads are audit-logged. Each successful content read is recorded in the host activity log against the issue.

The five new capability strings

Declare these in your manifest's capabilities — the host's capability validator rejects a plugin that calls these methods without them:

All five are members of PLUGIN_CAPABILITIES, which the SDK re-exports if you want to check values at runtime.

External-object reference providers

An external-object reference provider teaches Paperclip to recognise URLs that point at work living in another system — a GitHub PR, a Linear issue — and to keep a status-aware reference to that object alongside your issues. When an operator pastes a supported URL into issue content, the host detects it, asks your plugin to resolve the current remote status, and then refreshes it on a schedule so the reference renders as a live, status-aware chip across issue surfaces instead of a plain link.

You declare providers on the manifest under top-level objectReferences[], and you implement the lifecycle as optional handlers on the object you pass to definePlugin({...}). Declaring objectReferences requires both the external.objects.detect and external.objects.read capabilities; the batch refresh handler additionally requires external.objects.refresh.

Declaring a provider

Each entry is a PluginObjectReferenceProviderDeclaration:

PluginObjectReferenceRefreshPolicy controls how long a resolved object is treated as fresh:

The detect → resolve → refresh lifecycle

You implement the lifecycle as three optional hooks on your plugin definition. Each is gated behind its own capability.

onDetectExternalObjects(params) — Paperclip calls this when it scans issue, comment, or document content and asks whether any sanitized URL candidates belong to your providers. The host has already stripped URL userinfo, query strings, and fragments unless provider-safe identity components were explicitly hashed. Requires external.objects.detect.

• Receives DetectExternalObjectsParams: companyId, an array of PluginExternalObjectUrlCandidate (sanitizedCanonicalUrl, sanitizedDisplayUrl, canonicalIdentityHash, canonicalIdentity, redactedMatchedText), and a PluginExternalObjectSourceContext (companyId, sourceIssueId, sourceKind, sourceRecordId, documentKey, propertyKey).
• Returns DetectExternalObjectsResult: { detections }, where each PluginExternalObjectDetection carries urlIdentityHash, providerKey, objectType, externalId, and optional displayKey, iconKey, displayTitle, and confidence.

onResolveExternalObject(params) — Paperclip calls this when it needs the current normalized status for one external object owned by a declared provider. Requires external.objects.read.

• Receives ResolveExternalObjectParams: companyId, providerKey, objectType, externalId, and the current object as a PluginExternalObjectRecordSnapshot (the persisted row — id, companyId, providerKey, objectType, externalId, sanitizedCanonicalUrl, canonicalIdentityHash, displayKey, iconKey, displayTitle, statusKey, statusLabel, statusIconKey, statusCategory, statusTone, liveness, isTerminal, data, remoteVersion, etag).
• Returns PluginExternalObjectResolveResult, a discriminated union:
  • { ok: true, snapshot }, where snapshot is a PluginExternalObjectResolvedSnapshot carrying the refreshed statusCategory and statusTone plus optional displayKey, iconKey, displayTitle, statusKey, statusLabel, statusIconKey, isTerminal, data, remoteVersion, etag, and ttlSeconds.
  • { ok: false, liveness, errorCode, errorMessage?, retryAfterSeconds? }, where liveness is constrained to "auth_required" or "unreachable" — use this to report an expired token or an unreachable remote without dropping the reference.

onRefreshExternalObjects(params) — an optional batch resolver for providers that can refresh many objects more efficiently than calling onResolveExternalObject one at a time. Requires external.objects.refresh.

• Receives RefreshExternalObjectsParams: companyId and an array of PluginExternalObjectRecordSnapshot objects.
• Returns RefreshExternalObjectsResult: { results }, an array of { objectId, result } where each result is a PluginExternalObjectResolveResult shaped exactly like the single-object resolve return.

If you implement only onResolveExternalObject, the host refreshes objects one at a time within the window set by your refreshPolicy; declaring onRefreshExternalObjects lets you collapse those into a single round trip. For a concrete reference implementation, see the parent server/src/services/github-external-object-provider.ts.

JSON-RPC protocol

The SDK speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 between host and worker. Most plugin authors never call these directly, but they are exported for advanced use (custom transports, tests, replay tools).

Helpers and constants:

• JSONRPC_VERSION, MESSAGE_DELIMITER
• JSONRPC_ERROR_CODES, PLUGIN_RPC_ERROR_CODES
• HOST_TO_WORKER_REQUIRED_METHODS, HOST_TO_WORKER_OPTIONAL_METHODS
• createRequest, createSuccessResponse, createErrorResponse, createNotification
• isJsonRpcRequest, isJsonRpcNotification, isJsonRpcResponse, isJsonRpcSuccessResponse, isJsonRpcErrorResponse
• serializeMessage, parseMessage
• JsonRpcParseError, JsonRpcCallError

PLUGIN_RPC_ERROR_CODES includes CROSS_TENANT_CONFIG, the code the worker raises when a configChanged delivery would collapse a single-tenant worker onto a second company's configuration — see Declaring multi-company support with multiCompanyConfig.

The worker-to-host method table WorkerToHostMethods gained the calls that back the clients above: issues.listInteractions, issues.respondInteraction, issues.listAttachments, issues.getAttachmentContent, approvals.list, approvals.get, and approvals.decide.

Protocol types: JsonRpcId, JsonRpcRequest, JsonRpcSuccessResponse, JsonRpcError, JsonRpcErrorResponse, JsonRpcResponse, JsonRpcNotification, JsonRpcMessage, JsonRpcErrorCode, PluginRpcErrorCode, plus the parameter shapes for each RPC method: InitializeParams, InitializeResult, ConfigChangedParams, ValidateConfigParams, OnEventParams, RunJobParams, GetDataParams, PerformActionParams, ExecuteToolParams, and the host method tables HostToWorkerMethods / HostToWorkerMethodName / WorkerToHostMethods / WorkerToHostMethodName / HostToWorkerRequest / HostToWorkerResponse / WorkerToHostRequest / WorkerToHostResponse / WorkerToHostNotifications / WorkerToHostNotificationName.

External-object protocol shapes: PluginExternalObjectUrlCandidate, PluginExternalObjectSourceContext, DetectExternalObjectsParams, PluginExternalObjectDetection, DetectExternalObjectsResult, PluginExternalObjectRecordSnapshot, ResolveExternalObjectParams, PluginExternalObjectResolvedSnapshot, PluginExternalObjectResolveResult, RefreshExternalObjectsParams, RefreshExternalObjectsResult. See External-object reference providers for the lifecycle that uses them.

Environment-driver protocol shapes: PluginEnvironmentDiagnostic, PluginEnvironmentDriverBaseParams, PluginEnvironmentValidateConfigParams, PluginEnvironmentValidationResult, PluginEnvironmentProbeParams, PluginEnvironmentProbeResult, PluginEnvironmentLease, PluginEnvironmentAcquireLeaseParams, PluginEnvironmentResumeLeaseParams, PluginEnvironmentReleaseLeaseParams, PluginEnvironmentDestroyLeaseParams, PluginEnvironmentRealizeWorkspaceParams, PluginEnvironmentRealizeWorkspaceResult, PluginEnvironmentExecuteParams, PluginEnvironmentExecuteResult, PluginSyncFileMapping, PluginPostUploadCommand, PluginSyncOperation, PluginEnvironmentSyncInParams, PluginEnvironmentSyncOutParams, PluginEnvironmentSyncResult, PluginEnvironmentInteractiveSetupStatus, PluginEnvironmentInteractiveSetupConnectionType, PluginEnvironmentTemplateRefKind, PluginEnvironmentInteractiveSetupConnectionSummary, PluginEnvironmentInteractiveSetupConnectionPayload, PluginEnvironmentInteractiveSetupSession, PluginEnvironmentStartInteractiveSetupParams, PluginEnvironmentGetInteractiveSetupParams, PluginEnvironmentCaptureTemplateParams, PluginEnvironmentCaptureTemplateResult, PluginEnvironmentCancelInteractiveSetupParams, PluginEnvironmentCancelInteractiveSetupResult, PluginEnvironmentDeleteTemplateParams, PluginEnvironmentDeleteTemplateResult, PluginEnvironmentTemplateConfigBinding. The PluginSync* and PluginEnvironmentSync* shapes back the optional sandbox file-sync hooks, and the interactive-setup and template-capture shapes back the setup hooks — both described below.

Streaming live command output

When your driver runs a long-lived command through execute, you don't have to wait for it to finish to show its output. While an execute call is still running, call ctx.execution.log(stream, chunk) for each fresh piece of output the command produces, and the host forwards it to that call's log callback as it arrives — before the final execute result lands. The host knows which execute invocation the chunk belongs to because it correlates every chunk with the invocation currently running (by the host-issued invocation id carried on the message envelope), so you just report chunks as they come and the host does the matching.

The one method is log(stream: "stdout" | "stderr", chunk: string): void. Pass "stdout" or "stderr" for stream, and the text of the new output as chunk — it is a string, not raw bytes. A few things make this safe to sprinkle in wherever your command loop reads output:

• The default is a no-op that never throws. A driver that doesn't stream keeps its current behaviour, and you never need to guard the call — if there's nothing to stream to, log simply does nothing.
• The host drops anything malformed. A stream that isn't exactly stdout or stderr is dropped, and so is a chunk that is empty or too large. Bad input never reaches the log callback and never throws back at you.

So a provider that wants live output just calls ctx.execution.log("stdout", chunk) (or "stderr") each time it reads a new chunk from the running command, and a provider that doesn't stream can ignore the client entirely.

Running a command outside the persistent session

PluginEnvironmentExecuteParams carries an optional bypassSession?: boolean. It matters only if your driver opens a persistent session — one shell or connection it keeps alive across a lease's commands.

The host sets bypassSession: true on a command that must run before the run's agent work — the workspace provision command is the canonical example. When you see the flag, run that command one-shot and leave the persistent session closed: don't open the session for it. The session then opens naturally on the first real in-run command instead, so provisioning never leaks into the session the agent works in.

When the flag is absent or false, nothing changes — an ordinary in-run command opens and reuses the persistent session exactly as before. And a driver that doesn't keep a persistent session at all can ignore bypassSession entirely; there's no session to bypass.

Sandbox file sync (optional)

By default the host moves files in and out of a leased sandbox with a byte-identical base64-over-environmentExecute fallback. If your driver can do better — a provider-native bulk upload, an internal tar stream, per-file enumeration — you can take over the transfer by implementing a matched pair of hooks on the object you pass to definePlugin({...}):

• onEnvironmentSyncIn(params: PluginEnvironmentSyncInParams): Promise<PluginEnvironmentSyncResult> — called before execution to place host files and directories at their target sandbox paths.
• onEnvironmentSyncOut(params: PluginEnvironmentSyncOutParams): Promise<PluginEnvironmentSyncResult> — called after execution to copy sandbox files and directories back to their target host paths.

Both hooks are optional and opt-in, but they come as a pair: define both to advertise the environmentSyncIn / environmentSyncOut methods, and the host routes transfers through your driver. Leave them undefined and the base64 fallback stays in effect — a driver that only leases and executes can ignore them entirely.

Each params object carries the current PluginEnvironmentLease plus an ordered operations array of PluginSyncOperation. Operations are applied in array order; each one bundles an opaque, non-sensitive operationId (authored by the orchestrator — your driver must not interpret it) and a files list of PluginSyncFileMapping. A mapping describes one source→target transfer:

Return a PluginEnvironmentSyncResult: an operations array echoing each operationId with its filesTransferred and bytesTransferred counts, for host-side observability. The contract is provider-agnostic — transfer a directory however you like, as long as the observable result matches the mappings. For the full authoring rules, see the parent doc/plugins/SANDBOX_FILE_SYNC_HOOKS.md.

Running commands after the files land

Some files are not useful the moment they arrive. A dependency manifest needs an install step, an archive needs unpacking, a checked-out tree needs a fixup before the run can start. So a sync operation can now carry a short list of shell commands that run inside the sandbox after that operation's files have been placed.

PluginSyncOperation gained one optional field for this:

Absent means "no commands", and an operation without the field is byte-identical to a pre-contract one — so if you never look at it, your driver behaves exactly as it did before.

Each entry is a PluginPostUploadCommand, exported from @paperclipai/plugin-sdk:

The ordering rules are simple, and you should follow them exactly:

• Files first, then commands. Run the list once per operation, after every mapping in that operation has been placed — not after each individual file.
• Array order, fail-fast. The first non-zero exit or timeout aborts the operation. Don't skip ahead, and don't fall back to a silent partial success.

The security contract you have to honour

This is the part that matters most, because command is a string your driver hands to a shell. Paperclip keeps it safe by controlling where the string can come from, and your provider is the second half of that contract.

command is a Paperclip/adapter-authored control operation. It may be supplied only by core or adapter code. It never comes from a server route, from issue or comment content, from project or workspace file content, from a provider-plugin callback, or from arbitrary adapter config. Any path embedded in it is built by adapter/core helpers out of already-confined paths and shell-quoted before it ever reaches you.

Treat the command as opaque. You may execute it or reject it. You must not rewrite it, concatenate it, or append shell fragments of your own. In practice that means the working directory rides as a structured argument, never as a cd … && prefix glued onto the front of the command string.

Re-validate cwd before you exec. When cwd is present, confine it under the same sandbox root you use for file placement, with the same guards — .., absolute-escape, and symlink-escape all rejected fail-closed, before any command runs. When cwd is absent, default to the resolved sync remote/runtime root. Never fall back to a process default cwd.

The two native providers show what that looks like in practice, and they are worth reading if you are writing your own:

• Daytona (packages/plugins/sandbox-providers/daytona/src/file-sync.ts) re-runs its lexical assertConfinedSandboxPath check plus the realpath/symlink assertSandboxPathsConfined guard on a present cwd, then calls sandbox.process.executeCommand(command.command, cwd, undefined, commandTimeoutSeconds) — the command string is passed through untouched and the directory travels as its own argument.
• Kubernetes (packages/plugins/sandbox-providers/kubernetes/src/file-sync.ts) validates cwd lexically on the host first, then runs a fixed wrapper script in the pod that resolves the directory through realpath, pins it via /proc/self/fd, cds into the pinned inode, and only then execs the command. Both the directory and the command ride as positional parameters ($1 and $2) — the wrapper interpolates neither into its own script text, so the command runs byte-for-byte as authored. An escape attempt exits 42 before the command runs.

Kubernetes executes these commands symmetrically with Daytona rather than dropping them silently: a native provider that ignored the field would fail open, which is exactly the outcome the contract exists to prevent.

Both native providers run the commands on the way in only — inside performSyncIn's per-operation loop, once that operation's mappings have landed. Neither runs them on sync-out. Use the same placement in your own driver.

Interactive setup and reusable templates (optional)

An environment-driver plugin can go beyond leasing and executing: it can stand up a sandbox interactively so an operator can log in and get it just right, then capture that live sandbox as a reusable "custom image" template for future leases. These hooks are optional — only implement them if your driver supports interactive setup or capturing reusable environment templates. A driver that just leases and executes can ignore them entirely.

You implement them as optional methods on the object you pass to definePlugin({...}):

• onEnvironmentStartInteractiveSetup(params: PluginEnvironmentStartInteractiveSetupParams): Promise<PluginEnvironmentInteractiveSetupSession> — start an interactive setup sandbox and return redacted connection metadata.
• onEnvironmentGetInteractiveSetup(params: PluginEnvironmentGetInteractiveSetupParams): Promise<PluginEnvironmentInteractiveSetupSession> — read setup status and, when authorized, a one-time connection payload.
• onEnvironmentCaptureTemplate(params: PluginEnvironmentCaptureTemplateParams): Promise<PluginEnvironmentCaptureTemplateResult> — capture a reusable provider template from a live setup sandbox.
• onEnvironmentCancelInteractiveSetup(params: PluginEnvironmentCancelInteractiveSetupParams): Promise<PluginEnvironmentCancelInteractiveSetupResult> — cancel and clean up a setup sandbox without promoting a template.
• onEnvironmentDeleteTemplate(params: PluginEnvironmentDeleteTemplateParams): Promise<PluginEnvironmentDeleteTemplateResult> — optional best-effort cleanup of a captured provider template.

The typical flow is start → get (poll for status and, once authorized, fetch the one-time connection payload) → capture, with cancel as the escape hatch and delete-template as later cleanup.

Launcher render shapes: PluginModalBoundsRequest, PluginRenderCloseEvent, PluginLauncherRenderContextSnapshot.

Host client factory

For embedding the host side of the bridge in tests or custom integrations:

• createHostClientHandlers — build the handler map a host needs to answer worker-to-host RPC calls.
• getRequiredCapability — look up the capability gate a given worker-to-host call sits behind.
• CapabilityDeniedError — thrown by host handlers when the plugin is missing a required capability.

Types: HostServices, HostClientFactoryOptions, HostClientHandlers.

HostServices groups the handlers you must supply by domain. Alongside the existing issues group — which now also needs listInteractions, respondInteraction, listAttachments, and getAttachmentContent — there is a new approvals group providing list, get, and decide. getRequiredCapability is the place to confirm which capability each call sits behind.

Bundling and dev server

Helpers for the plugin's build pipeline:

• createPluginBundlerPresets — returns esbuild-like and rollup-like presets that pin the right externals/entry shape for plugin bundles.
• startPluginDevServer — local dev server for the plugin UI bundle.
• getUiBuildSnapshot — read the current UI build snapshot, useful in tests.

Types: PluginBundlerPresetInput, PluginBundlerPresets, EsbuildLikeOptions, RollupLikeConfig, PluginDevServer, PluginDevServerOptions.

Testing utilities

The SDK ships a first-class test harness so you do not have to spin up a real host:

• createTestHarness — base harness for unit-testing a plugin against in-memory host stubs.
• createEnvironmentTestHarness — harness for testing environment-driver plugins.
• createFakeEnvironmentDriver — synthesised driver implementation for assertions.
• filterEnvironmentEvents, assertEnvironmentEventOrder, assertLeaseLifecycle, assertWorkspaceRealizationLifecycle, assertExecutionLifecycle, assertEnvironmentError — assertion helpers for the environment-driver flow.

Types: TestHarness, TestHarnessOptions, TestHarnessLogEntry, EnvironmentTestHarness, EnvironmentTestHarnessOptions, EnvironmentEventRecord, FakeEnvironmentDriverOptions.

To test the interaction, approval, and attachment paths, seed them through harness.seed({ ... }), which accepts three new keys:

The harness deliberately mirrors the host's own write bar rather than waving it through: respondInteraction and approvals.decide both throw when actorUserId is missing, when it is not an active user member of the company, or when that member's membershipRole is viewer. Seed the members you want to act as through harness.seed({ accessMembers: [...] }), and a plugin test can't pass an attribution production would reject. The harness also honours maxBytes on getAttachmentContent and returns applied: false on replays, so idempotency is testable without a real host.

Re-exports

• z — zod is re-exported so plugin authors do not need to add a separate dependency. Use it for instanceConfigSchema and tool parametersSchema declarations.
• NOOP_PLUGIN_TRACER, NOOP_PLUGIN_SPAN — the default no-op tracer and span (values, not types). Handy as a stand-in when you want the do-nothing default explicitly, e.g. in tests.
• Constants from @paperclipai/shared: PLUGIN_API_VERSION, PLUGIN_STATUSES, PLUGIN_CATEGORIES, PLUGIN_CAPABILITIES, PLUGIN_UI_SLOT_TYPES, PLUGIN_UI_SLOT_ENTITY_TYPES, PLUGIN_STATE_SCOPE_KINDS, PLUGIN_JOB_STATUSES, PLUGIN_JOB_RUN_STATUSES, PLUGIN_JOB_RUN_TRIGGERS, PLUGIN_WEBHOOK_DELIVERY_STATUSES, PLUGIN_EVENT_TYPES, PLUGIN_BRIDGE_ERROR_CODES.

Example

A minimal worker entrypoint that wires up an event subscription, a job, and a data feed:

// dist/worker.ts
import { definePlugin, runWorker, z } from "@paperclipai/plugin-sdk";

const plugin = definePlugin({
  async setup(ctx) {
    ctx.logger.info("Plugin starting up");

    ctx.events.on("issue.created", async (event) => {
      ctx.logger.info("Issue created", { issueId: event.entityId });
    });

    ctx.jobs.register("full-sync", async (job) => {
      ctx.logger.info("Starting full sync", { runId: job.runId });
      // ... sync implementation
    });

    ctx.data.register("sync-health", async ({ companyId }) => {
      const state = await ctx.state.get({
        scopeKind: "company",
        scopeId: String(companyId),
        stateKey: "last-sync-at",
      });
      return { lastSync: state };
    });
  },

  async onHealth() {
    return { status: "ok" };
  },
});

export default plugin;
runWorker(plugin, import.meta.url);

The shape above is the canonical example in the SDK's own index.ts header. For the matching manifest types and capability flags, see the corresponding Plugin*Declaration types listed above.

Worker entrypoint validation

runWorker(plugin, import.meta.url) only starts the JSON-RPC host when the file it is called from is the process entrypoint. The check is intentionally tolerant of symlinked package layouts — common during local plugin development, where a pnpm-linked SDK or a workspace-linked plugin sits behind one or more symlinks.

The exported helper that backs this is isWorkerEntrypoint(entry, moduleUrl):

• It takes process.argv[1] (the path Node was invoked with) and the import.meta.url you passed to runWorker.
• It resolves both sides through fs.realpathSync.native, falling back to a plain path.resolve if the realpath call throws (for example, on a path that doesn't exist yet).
• It compares the resolved real paths for equality. If they match, the file is the entrypoint and runWorker calls startWorkerRpcHost({ plugin }). If they don't, runWorker returns silently — useful when the same module is also imported from tests or re-export shims.

The practical implications:

• Symlinked plugin packages work. When the host runs node /Users/you/.../dist/worker.js against a path that resolves through a symlink, the real-path comparison still matches import.meta.url and the worker boots.
• In-process tests skip the check. Passing both stdin and stdout in RunWorkerOptions makes runWorker start the host directly without consulting process.argv[1]. The test harnesses (createTestHarness, createEnvironmentTestHarness) use this path.
• Re-importing a worker file is safe. Importing the worker module from another file (e.g. a worker-bootstrap.ts that calls startWorkerRpcHost itself) won't double-boot the RPC host, because process.argv[1] will be the bootstrap file, not the worker module.

Related

• Administration → Plugins — installing, enabling, configuring, and uninstalling plugins as an operator.
• How-to → Write a Company Skill — instructions an agent loads, not server code.
• Reference → Creating an Adapter — the right extension point for new AI runtimes.
• Reference → Skills — the skill file shape and install pipeline a plugin's PluginManagedSkillDeclaration slots into.