abx-plugins 1.10.28

ArchiveBox-compatible plugin suite (hooks, configs, binaries manifests)

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ArchiveBox-compatible plugin suite (hooks and config schemas).

This package contains only the plugins, to run them use abx-dl or archivebox.

Usage

Tools like abx-dl and ArchiveBox can discover plugins from this package without symlinks or environment-variable tricks.

Plugin Contract

Directory layout

Each plugin lives under plugins/<name>/ and may include:

• config.json config schema
• config.json > required_binaries binary dependency declarations (optional)
• on_BinaryRequest__... binary provider hooks (optional) - resolve/install one requested binary and emit Binary
• on_CrawlSetup__... crawl setup hook scripts (optional) - shared setup/process startup, emit no stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__... per-snapshot hooks - emit ArchiveResult and may also emit Snapshot / Tag

Hooks run with:

• SNAP_DIR = base snapshot directory (default: .)
• CRAWL_DIR = base crawl directory (default: .)
• Snapshot hook output = SNAP_DIR/<plugin>/...
• Crawl hook output = CRAWL_DIR/<plugin>/...
• Other plugin outputs can be read via ../<other-plugin>/... from your own output dir

Key environment variables

• SNAP_DIR - base snapshot directory (default: .)
• CRAWL_DIR - base crawl directory (default: .)
• LIB_DIR - binaries/tools root (default: ~/.config/abx/lib)
• PERSONAS_DIR - persona profiles root (default: ~/.config/abx/personas)
• ACTIVE_PERSONA - persona name (default: Default)

Binary dependency contract (concise)

Lifecycle:

1. config.json > required_binaries declares plugin dependencies.
2. During the orchestrator install phase, those declarations are turned into BinaryRequest events.
3. on_BinaryRequest__* provider hooks resolve/install one requested binary and emit Binary records.

config.json declaration:

[
  {
    "name": "{YTDLP_BINARY}",
    "binproviders": "pip,brew,apt,env",
    "min_version": null,
    "overrides": {
      "pip": {
        "install_args": ["yt-dlp[default]"]
      }
    }
  }
]

on_BinaryRequest input/output:

• CLI input should accept --binary-id, --machine-id, --name (plus optional provider args).
• Output should emit exactly one Binary fact like:

{"type":"Binary","name":"yt-dlp","abspath":"/abs/path","version":"2025.01.01","sha256":"<optional>","binprovider":"pip","machine_id":"<recommended>","binary_id":"<recommended>"}

Semantics:

• stdout: JSONL records only
• stderr: human logs/debug
• exit 0: success or intentional skip
• exit non-zero: hard failure

Notes:

• Install resolution is orchestrator-managed preflight work driven directly from config.json > required_binaries.
• Only binprovider plugins should implement on_BinaryRequest__*.
• on_BinaryRequest__* hooks emit Binary records only.
• on_BinaryRequest__* hooks do not emit Machine, Process, ArchiveResult, Snapshot, or Tag records.
• Standalone abx-dl stores derived binary cache entries in derived.env; ArchiveBox stores the equivalent cache in DB machine_binary rows. Plugins should stay unaware of both storage layers.

State/OS:

• working dir: CRAWL_DIR/<plugin>/
• durable install root: LIB_DIR (e.g. npm prefix, pip venv, puppeteer cache)
• providers: apt (Debian/Ubuntu), brew (macOS/Linux), many hooks currently assume POSIX paths

Hook family contract

Lifecycle:

• on_BinaryRequest__* runs during install preflight and emits Binary records only
• on_CrawlSetup__* runs before snapshot extraction and emits no stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__* runs once per snapshot and may emit ArchiveResult, Snapshot, and Tag records only

State:

• output cwd is usually SNAP_DIR/<plugin>/
• hooks may read sibling outputs via ../<plugin>/...

Output records:

• on_Snapshot__* should finish with an ArchiveResult record:

{"type":"ArchiveResult","status":"succeeded|noresults|skipped|failed","output_str":"path-or-message"}

• Snapshot and Tag records may appear before the final ArchiveResult

Semantics:

• stdout: JSONL records
• stderr: diagnostics/logging
• exit 0: succeeded, noresults, or skipped
• exit non-zero: failed

Rules:

• on_CrawlSetup__* hooks should communicate only through side effects such as files, sockets, or long-lived processes, not stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__* hooks should not emit Machine, Process, or Binary records

Base plugin utilities

The base/ plugin provides shared Python and JS helpers that all other plugins import:

Python (base/utils.py):

from abx_plugins.plugins.base.utils import (
    load_config,
    emit_archive_result_record,
    emit_installed_binary_record,
    emit_snapshot_record,
)

• load_config() — load plugin config.json via jambo with env var + alias + fallback resolution, merged with shared base/common runtime vars like SNAP_DIR, CRAWL_DIR, LIB_DIR, PERSONAS_DIR, EXTRA_CONTEXT, TIMEOUT, and USER_AGENT
• emit_archive_result_record(status, output_str) — print {"type":"ArchiveResult",...} JSONL to stdout
• emit_installed_binary_record(name, abspath, version, ...) — emit Binary JSONL record
• emit_snapshot_record(record) — emit {"type":"Snapshot",...} JSONL to stdout
• write_text_atomic(path, content) — write file atomically (temp + rename)
• find_html_source(snap_dir, ...) — locate HTML from sibling plugins
• has_staticfile_output(snap_dir, path) — check if a sibling plugin produced a file
• enforce_lib_permissions() — lock down LIB_DIR so snapshot hooks can read/execute but not write

JS (base/utils.js):

const { loadConfig, getEnv, getEnvBool, getEnvInt, getEnvArray, emitArchiveResultRecord, emitSnapshotRecord } = require('../base/utils.js');

• loadConfig() — load plugin config.json merged with shared base/common runtime vars using env var + alias + fallback resolution
• emitArchiveResultRecord(status, outputStr) — emit ArchiveResult JSONL to stdout
• emitSnapshotRecord(record) — emit Snapshot JSONL to stdout

Test helpers (base/test_utils.py):

from base.test_utils import parse_jsonl_output, run_hook, get_hook_script

• parse_jsonl_output(stdout) — extract first matching JSONL record from hook stdout
• run_hook(hook_script, url, snapshot_id=None) — run a hook subprocess with standard args, optionally relying on EXTRA_CONTEXT for snapshot metadata
• get_hook_script(plugin_dir, pattern) — find hook script by glob pattern

Note: Use sys.path.append() (not insert(0, ...)) because the ssl/ plugin directory would shadow Python's stdlib ssl module.

Rules

• all plugins should:
  • overwrite existing files cleanly if re-run in the same dir, do not skip if files are already present (do not delete and then download, because if a process fails we want to leave previous output intact).
  • the exception to always overwriting files is: chrome.pid. target_id.txt, navigation.json, etc. chrome state which gets reused if it's not stale. we should detect if any of it is stale during chrome launch and tab creation, and clear all of it together if it is stale to prevent subtle drift errors / reuse of stale values.
  • status succeeded if they ran and produced output
  • status noresults if they ran successfully but produced no meaningful output (e.g. git on a non-github url, ytdlp on a site with no media, paperdl on a site with no pdfs, etc.)
  • status skipped if only if config caused them not to run (e.g. YTDLP_ENABLED=False)
  • status failed if any hard dependencies are missing/invalid (e.g. chrome) or if the process exited non-0 / raised an exception
  • return a short, meaningful output_str e.g. the page title, mimetype, return status code, or the relative path of the primary output file produced like output.pdf or 0 modals closed or The Page Title Verbatim or favicon.io or Not a git URL
  • define execution order solely using lexicographic sort order of hook filenames
  • use bg hooks for either short-lived tasks that can run in parallel, or long-lived daemons that run for the whole duration of the snapshot and get killed for cleanup/final output at the end
  • bg hooks that depend on other bg hook outputs must implement their own waiters internally + check that inputs are truly ready and not just that the files are present, because they may be spawned in parallel/before the earlier one's outputs are actually ready and race. e.g. html/artifact generation should usually be fg so that later bg parsing hooks can safely depend on it being finished and not just part of the file being present
  • use rich_click for cli arg parsing with a uv file header when hooks are written in python. do not depend on archivebox or django, try to only depend on chrome or the output files of other plugins instead of importing code from them. the one exception is to always use chrome_utils.js as the interface for anything involving chrome.

Hook JSONL interface

Hooks emit plain JSONL records to stdout. The current hook families and records are:

• on_BinaryRequest__* → Binary
• on_CrawlSetup__* → no stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__* → ArchiveResult, Snapshot, Tag

abx-dl and ArchiveBox map those records into their own internal event systems. Plugins do not need to know or emit any bus envelope format.