Plugin Repositories

As mentioned earlier, plugins built by Aragon and third-party developers can be added and removed from your DAO to adapt it to your needs.

The management of these plugins is handled for you by the Aragon OSx protocol so that the process of releasing new plugins as well as installing, updating, and uninstalling them to your DAO becomes as streamlined as possible.

What Does a Plugin Consist Of?

An Aragon OSx Plugin consists of:

  • The PluginSetup contract

    • referencing the Plugin implementation internally

    • containing the setup instruction to install, update, and uninstall it to an existing DAO

  • A metadata URI pointing to a JSON file containing the

    • AragonApp frontend information

    • Information needed for the setup ABI

  • A version tag consisting of a

    • Release number

    • Build number

A detailed explanation of the build and release versioning is found in the Guides sections in our developer portal.

plugin version.drawio
Figure 1. A schematic depiction of a plugin bundle consisting of a version tag, the plugin setup contract pointing to the plugin implementation contract, and a metadata URI.

The PluginSetup is written by you, the plugin developer. The processing of the setup is managed by the PluginSetupProcessor, the central component of the setup process in the Aragon OSx framework, which is explained in the section The Plugin Setup Process.

Each plugin with its different builds and releases is versioned inside its own plugin repositories in a PluginRepo contract.

Plugin Repositories

Each plugin has its own Plugin Repository, unique ENS name, and on-chain repository contract, the PluginRepo, in which different versions of the plugin are stored for reference using version tags constituted by a release and build number.

Different versions might contain:

  • bug fixes

  • new features

  • breaking changes

PluginRepo contracts themselves, each associated with a different plugin, are registered in the Aragon OSx PluginRepoRegistry and carry their own ENS name that the creator chooses. The PluginRepoRegistry contract is described in the upcoming subsection.

plugin repo overview.drawio
Figure 2. Schematic depiction of the versioning taking place in the PluginRepoRegistry.

Overview of the plugin versioning and registry in the Aragon OSx protocol. The PluginRepoRegistry contract, which is a curated list of ENS named PluginRepo contracts, is shown on the left. Each PluginRepo contract maintains a list of versions of the PluginSetup contract (internally referencing the Plugin implementation contract) and the associated UI building blocks as a URI, exemplarily shown on the right.

The PluginRepo Contract

The PluginRepo contract versions the releases of a Plugin. The first version of a plugin is always published as release 1 and build 1 (version tag 1.1). When you publish the first plugin version, a new plugin repository is automatically created for you by the Aragon OSx protocol in which you are the maintainer. The creation process is described in the plugin repo creation process section.

The PluginRepo contract is UUPS upgradeable, inherits from the PermissionManager and allows the maintainer of the repository to create new versions with the createVersion function:

/// @notice Creates a new plugin version as the latest build for an existing release number or the first build for a new release number for the provided `PluginSetup` contract address and metadata.
/// @param _release The release number.
/// @param _pluginSetupAddress The address of the plugin setup contract.
/// @param _buildMetadata The build metadata URI.
/// @param _releaseMetadata The release metadata URI.
function createVersion(
  uint8 _release,
  address _pluginSetup,
  bytes calldata _buildMetadata,
  bytes calldata _releaseMetadata
) external auth(address(this), MAINTAINER_PERMISSION_ID);

The function receives four input arguments:

  1. The _release number to create the build for. If the release number exists already (e.g., release 1), it is registered as the latest build (e.g., 1.3 if the previous build was 1.2). If it is a new release number, the build number is 1 (e.g., 2.1).

  2. The address of PluginSetup contract internally referencing the implementation contract (to copy, proxy, or clone from it) and taking care of installing, updating to, and uninstalling this specific version.

  3. The _buildMetadata URI pointing to a JSON file containing the UI data, setup data, and change description for this specific version.

  4. The _releaseMetadata URI pointing to a JSON file containing the plugin name, description, as well as optional data such as images to be shown in the aragonApp frontend.

Other functions present in the contract allow you to query previous versions and to update the release metadata. The PluginRepo is created for you when you publish the PluginSetup contract of your first version to the Aragon OSx protocol, which is explained in the next section: The Plugin Repo Creation Process.

For more details visit the PluginRepo reference guide entry.
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