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03. Plugin API

Theme variables

pi.themes.setVariables(themeId, values) requires ui.theme. The host accepts only values for declared variables on one of the caller's themes, persists them in private plugin settings, and refreshes an active theme without selecting a new theme or reloading the renderer. It never accepts stylesheet text, URLs, selectors, images, fonts, or arbitrary property names.

1. Design principles

  1. Small and stable
  2. Permission-driven
  3. Async-first
  4. Auditable
  5. Do not expose host internal objects

2. Runtime-injected object

Inside the plugin runtime, a global is available:

declare const pi: PiPluginHostApi;

3. API overview (MVP)

Status legend: every section below is shipped and enforced by PluginRuntime unless its heading or text says Planned. A planned surface is documented ahead of implementation so plugin authors can see the direction; it throws UNSUPPORTED until it lands (see §9 for the per-surface list).

app

pi.app.getVersion(): Promise<string>
pi.app.getLocale(): Promise<string>
pi.app.getAppearance(): Promise<PluginAppearance>
pi.app.setTheme(themeId: "system" | "light" | "dark" | `plugin:${string}`): Promise<void>

app.getAppearance returns the appearance the host is currently showing so a plugin (or its panel) can mirror the app's language and color mode exactly:

type PluginAppearance = {
  theme: string        // raw preference: "light" | "dark" | "system" | "plugin:<pluginId>:<themeId>"
  base: "light" | "dark" | "system"  // palette the preference resolves to
  locale: string       // active language tag (e.g. "en", "zh-CN")
  pluginTheme: { id: string; base: "light" | "dark"; css: string } | null
}

Panels read the same value through the bridge channel app.getAppearance and receive live updates on the appearance:changed event (below). Plugin processes receive the same event on pi.events. On hosts older than the channel, the call rejects with UNSUPPORTED; panels should fall back to the OS preference and their own in-panel choice.

app.getLocale is the same language tag as getAppearance().locale. Plugin-owned UI (panels, views, widgets, settings destinations, toasts, runtime command titles) localizes from this value. The host does not grow { en, "zh-CN" } maps on more contribution fields; generated contributes.settings titles stay plain strings (ADR 0280). Host-owned identity (manifest.i18n) and already-shipped chrome labels (ui.title, view titles, destinations) keep their existing contracts (ADR 0267, ADR 0082).

app.setTheme (requires ui.theme, ADR 0260) applies the app theme preference the Settings picker writes. It accepts a built-in preference or a currently registered plugin theme id; unknown ids reject with INVALID_ARGUMENT. The host persists AppSettings.theme, refreshes native chrome / panel appearance, and emits settingsChanged to the renderer.

themes (requires ui.theme)

Runtime registry for the calling plugin's own themes. Works in production without unload/reload (ADR 0260).

pi.themes.upsert(input: {
  id: string;           // local id, same rules as contributes.themes[].id
  label: string;
  base: "light" | "dark";
  css: string;          // sanitized with sanitizeThemeCss
}): Promise<void>

pi.themes.remove(themeId: string): Promise<void>
pi.themes.list(): Promise<Array<{ id: string; themeId: string; label: string; base: "light" | "dark" }>>
  • Full ids are namespaced plugin:<pluginId>:<themeId>.
  • upsert of an existing id replaces label / base / css.
  • There is no per-plugin theme count cap; the CSS size cap and sanitizer still apply.
  • After upsert/remove the host emits pluginChanged (reason: "themes") and refreshes panel appearance, so an updated active theme restyles immediately.

plugin

pi.plugin.getId(): string
pi.plugin.getManifest(): PluginManifestV1
pi.plugin.getSettings<T=Record<string, unknown>>(): Promise<T>
pi.plugin.setSettings(partial: Record<string, unknown>): Promise<void>
pi.plugin.getDataPath(): Promise<string> // plugin-private directory

The installed Plugins page renders every contributes.settings field and persists edits in the plugin's private settings file. Supported generated controls are string, number, boolean, select, json, and shortcut. Generated title / description / enum[].label are author-language strings; the host does not resolve locale maps on them. A plugin that needs a localized settings surface ships settingsDestinations and reads pi.app.getLocale (ADR 0280). Shortcut settings are plugin-local: they invoke the declared command only while the PI-Desktop app window is focused and while the plugin's activation scope matches the current project. They are never registered as OS-global shortcuts in this release. The host emits plugin:settingsChanged after a user edit so a plugin can refresh in-memory configuration.

commands

pi.commands.register(def: {
 id: string
 title: string
 keywords?: string[]
 run: () => Promise<void> | void
}): Promise<void>

pi.commands.unregister(id: string): Promise<void>

speech (speech.adapter.register)

pi.speech.registerAdapter(adapter: {
  protocol: string
  label: string
  roles: Array<"transcribe" | "synthesize">
  handle: (input) => Promise<{ kind: "text"; text: string } | { kind: "audio"; mimeType: string; data: string } | { kind: "http"; call: SpeechHttpCall }>
}): Promise<void>
pi.speech.unregisterAdapter(protocol: string): Promise<void>

The handle stays in the plugin process. Built-in protocol ids openai_audio and openai_chat_audio are reserved. HTTP plans are executed by the host with the bound provider key and must stay on that origin.

ui

pi.ui.openPanel(options?: { title?: string }): Promise<void>
pi.ui.closePanel(): Promise<void>
pi.ui.showToast(message: string, level?: "info"|"warn"|"error"): Promise<void>
pi.ui.notify(input: { title: string; body?: string }): Promise<void>
pi.ui.getNotificationPermission(): Promise<PluginNotificationPermission>
pi.ui.requestNotificationPermission(): Promise<PluginNotificationPermission>
pi.ui.showNativeNotification(input: {
  title: string
  body?: string
}): Promise<{ shown: boolean; permission: PluginNotificationPermission }>

type PluginNotificationPermission = "granted" | "denied" | "unknown" | "unsupported"

ui.notify remains an in-app Toast. Native delivery is opt-in through ui.showNativeNotification and is guarded by the same manifest notify permission. requestNotificationPermission performs the platform-native permission probe by showing a short confirmation notification; Electron does not expose a cross-platform read-only notification permission API, so unknown is returned before the first probe and when the operating system does not report a result. Native delivery is best-effort: an OS policy may suppress the banner without changing the durable task notification inbox. Clicking a delivered plugin notification restores and focuses the main window, but never activates a session or creates a durable task notification.

project (requires project.create)

pi.project.create(input: { path: string }): Promise<{
  projectId: number
  path: string
  name: string
}>

This creates or reuses a durable host project record without changing the active workspace. The returned projectId may be passed explicitly to pi.session.import() or an item in pi.session.importBatch(). The plugin must hold project.create when it supplies a project id. Omitting projectId keeps the imported session unbound; projectPath remains historical source metadata and never creates a project by itself.

workspace / fs

pi.workspace.get(): Promise<{
  path: string;
  name: string;
  projectId?: string;
  roots?: Array<{ path: string; name: string; primary: boolean }>;
} | null>

pi.fs.readText(pathFromRoot: string): Promise<string>
pi.fs.stat(pathFromRoot: string, grantId?: string): Promise<{
  size: number;
  mtimeMs: number;
}>
pi.fs.readRange(
  pathFromRoot: string,
  byteOffset: number,
  length: number,
  grantId?: string,
): Promise<{ bytes: Uint8Array; totalSize: number }>
pi.fs.readPreview(pathFromRoot: string): Promise<{
  kind: "text" | "image" | "binary" | "tooLarge"
  content?: string     // UTF-8 when kind is "text"
  dataUrl?: string     // data URL when kind is "image"
  size: number
}>
pi.fs.openDefault(pathFromRoot: string): Promise<void>
pi.fs.reveal(pathFromRoot: string): Promise<void>
pi.fs.writeText(pathFromRoot: string, content: string): Promise<void>
pi.fs.glob(pattern: string): Promise<string[]>
pi.fs.list(pathFromRoot: string): Promise<Array<{
  name: string;
  path: string;        // root-relative, usable directly with readText / list
  isDirectory: boolean;
  size?: number;       // files only
  mtimeMs?: number;    // files only; Unix epoch milliseconds
}>>
pi.fs.remove(pathFromRoot: string): Promise<void>
pi.fs.requestDirectory(): Promise<{ path: string; name: string } | null>

workspace.get answers with the primary root — path and its leaf name, both unchanged — plus, when that folder belongs to a project group (ADR 0249), projectId and roots: every registered folder of the group in its own order, primary first, each { path, name, primary } (ADR 0263). workspace:changed carries the same object, and main answers both from the host-owned group records, so the event and the pull cannot disagree. A host that cannot resolve the group omits projectId and roots — the same { path, name } a plugin already handles — and reading this metadata needs no new permission and adds no SDK method.

fs.readPreview classifies one existing readable file for in-app display. It uses the same fs.read checks as fs.readText, rejects directories, and returns text (capped at 512 KiB), image (capped at 5 MiB, as a data URL), binary, or tooLarge. The plugin never receives an absolute path.

fs.openDefault opens one existing file with the operating system's default associated application. It uses the same fs.read root, symlink, protected-path, deny-list, and scope checks as fs.readText; directories are rejected. The host audits the operation. A path is root-relative by default, and an absolute path is accepted only by this action and fs.reveal (no other mode takes one) when it lies inside a registered folder root of the open project — which then becomes the containment base for the request (ADR 0249 §5, ADR 0264). That is the shape a view uses to name a file in a project folder other than the primary one.

fs.reveal reveals one existing readable file in the operating system's file manager and selects it when the platform supports that behavior. It uses the same fs.read checks, rejects directories, and audits both success and failure. It takes a path exactly as fs.openDefault does: root-relative by default, and absolute when the file lies inside another registered folder root of the open project (ADR 0264).

fs.stat returns the size and modification time of one existing readable file without loading its contents. fs.readRange returns at most 8 MiB of bytes and the total file size. Both use the same root, symlink, protected-path, deny-list, scope, consent, and audit gates as fs.readText; offsets and lengths are non-negative safe integers. An offset at or beyond EOF returns an empty byte array. A grantId is only valid for a host-issued dropped-file grant and then requires the matching absolute path.

Paths are relative to the mode's root — the workspace, or the directory the user picked through requestDirectory() when the mode declares root: "userSelected". Which paths each mode may reach comes from manifest.fs; anything outside it prompts the user, and the credential deny-list overrides both (see 04-plugin-security.md §6). remove is non-recursive and moves the path to the OS trash. Under the workspace root, paths are relative to the project of the tool session that invoked the call, falling back to the visible workspace for a panel call, which has no tool session (ADR 0266).

list returns one directory's entries, name-sorted, so a plugin can walk a tree lazily instead of pulling a whole-repo glob and reassembling it. It applies the same guards as glob, because a listing is a read: files outside the declared read scope are omitted, denied names and protected paths are omitted, and heavy directories (node_modules and friends) are skipped. Directories are always returned so a narrow scope still yields a navigable tree, and at most 1000 entries come back per call.

agent

pi.agent.registerTool(tool: {
 name: string
 description: string
 risk: "low"|"medium"|"high"
 schema: unknown
 execute: (args: unknown, ctx: ToolExecContext) => Promise<unknown>
}): Promise<void>

pi.agent.unregisterTool(name: string): Promise<void>

Registered plugin agent tools are Agent-only contributions. During Plan the host filters them out of the model tool list and rejects direct execution with PLUGIN_DISABLED_IN_PLAN, including when the manifest risk is low, the user has an allow-session grant, or the session permission mode is auto. A successful plan approval makes the same registered tools eligible again under the selected Agent permission policy.

type ToolExecContext = {
 sessionId: string
 turnId?: string
 /** Executor model for this session, `providerId/modelId`. Configuration, not transcript. */
 modelKey?: string
 thinkingLevel?: ThinkingLevel
 signal?: AbortSignal
 log: (msg: string) => void
}

turnId is populated for host-driven turns and matches the turnId of the corresponding session:turnEnded event (§5).

models (requires models.list)

pi.models.list(): Promise<PluginModelInfo[]>

type PluginModelInfo = {
  key: string                 // `${providerId}/${modelId}` — first slash splits
  providerId: string
  providerName: string
  modelId: string
  label: string
  supportsReasoning: boolean
  thinkingLevels: ThinkingLevel[]
}

Only enabled, authenticated provider rows are returned (API key, OAuth, or authKind: "none"). No secrets. models.list is also a panel-bridge channel so a picker page can populate itself. When the host transport is unavailable, the call returns an empty list instead of warning (D080).

session (requires session.read)

pi.session.getLlmContext(): Promise<PluginLlmContext>

type PluginLlmMessage = {
  role: "user" | "assistant" | "tool" | "system"
  content: string
  toolName?: string
}

type PluginLlmContext = {
  sessionId: string
  modelKey: string | null
  thinkingLevel?: ThinkingLevel
  messages: PluginLlmMessage[]
  truncated: boolean
}

The plugin cannot pass a session id. Identity is the in-flight plugins.execute session (D333 / D336). Calling this outside a tool execution fails with INVALID_ARGUMENT. Subagent rows are omitted. An in-flight call of the plugin's own tool is stripped from the tail. A compaction summary replaces pre-checkpoint history. Combined content is capped at 200k characters.

plugin-owned sessions (P0/P1; requires the matching permission)

Plugins may import and manage only sessions whose origin belongs to that same plugin. The source must be declared in manifest.contributes.sessionSources; the host supplies the localized source label and generates the durable session and message ids. Imported sessions never bind a workspace, provider, or model; they bind a project only when the caller supplies an existing projectId. The original import values remain available in get().history.

type PluginSessionSourceContrib = {
  id: string
  label?: string | { en: string; "zh-CN": string }
}

pi.session.import(input: {
  source: string
  externalId: string
  title: string
  projectId?: number | null // explicit id from pi.project.create; omitted is unbound
  projectPath?: string | null
  modelId?: string | null
  providerId?: string | null
  createdAt: string // strict RFC3339
  updatedAt: string // >= createdAt
  messages: Array<{
    role: "user" | "assistant" | "tool"
    content: string
    createdAt: string // monotonic within the session
    modelId?: string
    providerId?: string
    toolName?: string
    toolCallId?: string
    toolStatus?: "success" | "error"
    toolArgs?: unknown
    toolResult?: unknown
  }>
}): Promise<{ sessionId: string; imported: boolean; skipped: boolean }>

pi.session.importBatch(input: {
  source: string
  sessions: Array<Omit<PluginSessionImportInput, "source">>
  mode?: "skip" | "fail"
}): Promise<PluginSessionBatchImportResult>

pi.session.list(input?: {
  limit?: number; cursor?: string; source?: string; updatedAfter?: string
}): Promise<PluginSessionListResult>
pi.session.get(input: { sessionId: string }): Promise<PluginSessionGetResult>
pi.session.listMessages(input: {
  sessionId: string; limit?: number; cursor?: string
  order?: "asc" | "desc"; contentLimit?: number
}): Promise<PluginSessionMessageListResult>
pi.session.rename(input: { sessionId: string; title: string }): Promise<{ updated: boolean }>
pi.session.delete(input: {
  sessionId: string; mode?: "trash" | "purge"
}): Promise<{ deleted: boolean }>

Import is idempotent on (pluginId, source, externalId). skip batches continue per item; fail batches validate and commit atomically. trash hides the session while retaining its transcript and origin; purge removes both and allows a later re-import. Reads, rename, and delete are ownership-scoped, and undeclared sources fail with PERMISSION_DENIED.

When a session has an explicit project binding, projectId and bound.workspace report that binding, and get().projectPath resolves the bound project's current path. The original import projectPath remains in get().history.

After a successful import, rename, or delete, Electron main emits one host-owned sessionsChanged event for the affected mutation. The renderer refreshes its authoritative session list and the Projects page refreshes its durable project index from that list. Plugins do not emit or coordinate this event themselves. A project created through this API is not automatically opened as a sidebar tab, preserving the existing closed-project behavior.

The host enforces a 2,000-message/session, 100-session/batch, 512 KiB/message, 256 KiB/tool-value, 32 MiB/payload, and JSON-depth-8 limit. Import is limited to 10 calls/minute plus 5 batch calls/minute per plugin; delete is limited to 20 calls/minute. Tool __pi* and piDesktop.* object keys are removed before storage. P2/P3 operations (session create, message mutation, arbitrary re-binding, provider/model binding, batch delete, and tags) are intentionally not part of this contract.

usage (requires usage.read)

Read-only completed-turn facts for the non-deleted sessions the user can still see. The host serves one flat fact row per turn — counters and identifiers only; no message body, no transcript projection, and no write path. Deliberately no dashboard shape: streaks, heatmaps, per-model shares, and top-session rankings are the plugin's own computation on top of these rows, so changing a metric definition later is never a breaking SDK change.

pi.usage.listTurns(input?: {
  fromMs?: number      // inclusive window start, epoch ms; default toMs - 30 days
  toMs?: number        // inclusive window end, epoch ms; default now
  projectId?: number | null
  sessionId?: string
  cursor?: string      // opaque page cursor from the previous nextCursor
  limit?: number       // 1..=500 rows; default 200
}): Promise<{
  turns: Array<{
    turnId: string; sessionId: string; sessionTitle: string | null
    projectId: number | null; providerId: string | null; modelId: string | null
    startedAt: number; endedAt: number
    inputTokens: number; outputTokens: number
    cacheReadTokens: number; cacheWriteTokens: number; reasoningTokens: number
  }>
  nextCursor: string | null
}>

Semantics:

  • Only completed turns of non-deleted sessions are listed. A session the user deleted leaves the listing.
  • Rows are ordered by endedAt ascending with a keyset cursor, so paging is stable while the window fills; the ranking a dashboard shows is its own sort, not the host's.
  • The window spans at most 365 days; limit is 1..=500 (default 200). The Electron side validates first, and the host RPC re-checks the same bounds. Absent and null bounds are equivalent; an empty session title is returned as null.
  • A missing or malformed usage_json yields zero cache/reasoning counters — never a partial row.

session collaboration (requires desktop.control)

The official Session Orchestrator composes the reviewed desktop-control catalog; this is not a second session API and it does not expose Electron channels or the local MCP bearer token.

type SessionCollaborationOperation =
  | "session/collaboration/spawn"
  | "session/collaboration/send"
  | "session/collaboration/list"
  | "session/collaboration/status"
  | "session/collaboration/result"
  | "session/collaboration/cancel"

// All calls use pi.desktop.invoke({ operation, args: [input] }).
type SpawnInput = {
  task: string
  title?: string
  modelKey?: string
  notifyOnCompletion?: boolean
  idempotencyKey?: string
}
type SendInput = {
  sessionId: string
  content: string
  kind?: "task" | "message"
  notifyOnCompletion?: boolean
  idempotencyKey?: string
}
type ListInput = {}
type StatusInput = { sessionId: string }
type ResultInput = { sessionId: string; messageId?: string; turnId?: string }
type CancelInput = { sessionId: string; messageId?: string }

spawn returns a real durable target sessionId and host delivery messageId. send addresses an existing Session ID in either direction and reuses that session's project, model, context, and permission configuration; messageId identifies one delivery and is never a worker identity. status and result are bounded projections and do not load a full transcript. cancel interrupts only the exact queued delivery or bound turn and retains the target session and history.

A named spawn modelKey is an AI-driven delegation choice and needs that model's own ModelBinding.availableForSubagents opt-in; the host answers PERMISSION_DENIED for a model the user has not enabled, before creating a worker. Omitting modelKey still inherits — the first enabled model, else the default — and naming the default model's own key is that same inheritance rather than a selection (ADR subagent-model-opt-in).

list returns at most 100 non-deleted Agent sessions that can receive a message, including sessions created independently of Session Orchestrator. Each entry contains only its Session ID, title, status, updated time, readable provider/model labels, and bounded creation links; it does not include a transcript, project path, credentials, or message previews. The caller can pass the returned Session ID to send, and status/result remain the authoritative detail reads.

spawn and send are valid only during the plugin's active Agent tool invocation. The broker injects pluginId, source sessionId, source turnId, and an invocation identity; plugin arguments cannot supply or override those values. A user-facing plugin panel may use cancel with its own plugin identity, but cannot use that path to send or spawn work. The host enforces the source permission ceiling, Agent-mode target, inbox and worker limits, idempotency, and bounded autonomous hops. A requested completion callback is a host-owned completion message linked to the source delivery and is created at most once after the actual target turn settles. The callback is session data, not a new user authorization, and completion messages do not trigger another callback.

The renderer may read the separate sidebar collaboration projection, but a plugin panel cannot invoke the mutation operations outside this gateway.

agent.complete (requires agent.complete)

pi.agent.complete(input: {
  modelKey: string
  thinkingLevel?: ThinkingLevel
  system?: string
  messages?: Array<{ role: "user" | "assistant"; content: string }>
  includeSessionContext?: boolean
}): Promise<{
  text: string
  modelKey: string
  thinkingLevel?: ThinkingLevel
  usage?: MessageUsage
}>

The host resolves credentials and runs a one-shot completion with tools: [] through the same path as Composer prompt enhancement. The plugin never receives a secret. includeSessionContext: true also requires session.read and an in-flight tool session; the host serializes that context and, if messages is empty, appends Please respond to the request. System prompt ≤ 32 KiB; combined messages ≤ 200k characters; eight calls per plugin per rolling 60s (RATE_LIMITED); 90s budget (TIMEOUT). Provider 429 and other transient provider failures are retried inside the same call under the shared provider retry budget (ADR 0206) and a Retry-After header is honored. Empty model output is INVALID_ARGUMENT.

When the call still fails, the plugin receives the host's classified code rather than a single generic failure — PROVIDER_RATE_LIMITED once the retry budget is exhausted, PROVIDER_UNAUTHORIZED, CONTEXT_TOO_LARGE, NETWORK_ERROR — so it can pace itself and report the cause. The broker answers with whichever code the failing service classified, in the same data.errorCode → errorCode → code precedence every other host boundary uses.

clipboard / shell

pi.clipboard.readText(): Promise<string>
pi.clipboard.writeText(text: string): Promise<void>
pi.clipboard.getHistory(): Promise<ClipboardHistoryEntry[]>

type ClipboardHistoryEntry =
  | { type: "text"; text: string; capturedAt: string }
  | {
      type: "image"
      format: "png" | "jpeg" | "webp"
      data: Uint8Array
      width: number
      height: number
      capturedAt: string
    }
pi.shell.openExternal(url: string): Promise<void>

openExternal parses url and opens only http:, https:, and mailto: hrefs (D330 / ADR 0168). Other schemes fail with INVALID_ARGUMENT.

browser (requires browser.cdp)

pi.browser.navigate(input: { url?: string; path?: string }): Promise<BrowserState | null>
pi.browser.action(input: { action: "back" | "forward" | "reload" | "stop" }): Promise<void>
pi.browser.setBounds(hole: { x: number; y: number; width: number; height: number }): Promise<unknown>
pi.browser.setVisible(visible: boolean | { visible: boolean }): Promise<void>
pi.browser.getState(): Promise<BrowserState | null>
pi.browser.openExternal(): Promise<void>
pi.browser.snapshot(): Promise<{ tree: string; url: string; title: string }>
pi.browser.screenshot(input?: { fullPage?: boolean }): Promise<{ mimeType: string; data: string; path?: string }>
pi.browser.click(input: { uid: string }): Promise<void>
pi.browser.fill(input: { uid: string; text: string }): Promise<void>
pi.browser.evaluate(input: { expression: string }): Promise<unknown>
pi.browser.console(input?: { limit?: number }): Promise<{ messages: unknown[] }>
pi.browser.cdp(input: { method: string; params?: unknown }): Promise<unknown>

navigate returns when the current main-frame navigation commits, including redirects; it does not wait for slow images or subframes. browser:state reports loading immediately and optionally includes loadError for failed navigation. Optional sessionId and tabId identify the host-owned work-panel destination; plugins do not select these identities through navigation arguments.

The current guest page is a host-owned WebContentsView (persist:work-browser). Each resource tab retains its own page. A navigation for a background session is queued for that session's last selected tab, or its first tab when none exists. It does not navigate or return another session's visible page. setBounds is content-relative to the calling plugin view and is clamped so the guest cannot cover chat/composer. cdp is deny-by-default; cookie, storage, target, and network-interception methods fail with PERMISSION_DENIED. Session identity for agent calls comes from the in-flight plugins.execute sessionId, not from plugin arguments (D333 / ADR 0170).

getHistory returns newest-first entries explicitly recorded by the host, with text and images interleaved in capture order. Content written through writeText and content supplied by the Composer's user-initiated paste event are recorded; the host does not poll or reread the OS clipboard in the background. Consecutive identical content is collapsed and refreshes its timestamp. History is in-memory only and is bounded to 30 days, 500 entries, and 256 MiB total payload; individual entries are limited to 100 KiB of UTF-8 text or 50 MiB of image bytes. Images are returned as PNG bytes with their pixel dimensions. A copy that is never pasted is intentionally not captured.

services (requires background.service)

pi.services.register(service: {
 id: string // must match a contributes.services[].id
 start: (ctx: { log: (msg: string) => void }) => Promise<void> | void
 stop?: () => Promise<void> | void
}): void

pi.services.unregister(id: string): Promise<void>

Registration is local bookkeeping: it records the handlers so the broker can call them. The host calls start after onLoad and stop before unload, and restarts a crashed plugin per 05-plugin-lifecycle.md. start is idempotent within one process — a second start on an already-running service is a no-op.

bus (requires bus.publish / bus.subscribe)

pi.bus.publish(topic: string, payload?: unknown): Promise<void>
pi.bus.subscribe(
 pattern: string,
 handler: (message: PluginBusMessage) => void,
): Promise<() => Promise<void>> // resolves to unsubscribe
type PluginBusMessage = {
 topic: string
 from: string // publisher plugin id
 payload?: unknown
 at: string // ISO timestamp assigned by the host
}

topic must appear in contributes.bus.publish; pattern must appear in contributes.bus.subscribe. A publisher is excluded from its own fan-out. Caps and the threat model are in 04-plugin-security.md §5.1.

net

pi.net.fetch(input: {
 url: string
 method?: string
 headers?: Record<string, string>
 body?: string
 timeoutMs?: number
}): Promise<{ status: number; headers: Record<string, string>; bodyText: string }>

fetch answers with the upstream response unchanged — status, headers, and bodyText — so a 429 is data your plugin can read, Retry-After included, rather than an error the host hides. The host does not retry, throttle, or re-issue the request: retry and backoff after a 429 are your plugin's own policy, and the response headers are the only backoff signal you get. A failed call (status >= 400) is audited as ok: false, together with the retryAfter it advertised when the response states one (§7).

pi.net.websocket.connect(input: {
  url: string
  headers?: Record<string, string>
  protocols?: string[]
  timeoutMs?: number
}): Promise<{ socketId: string }>

pi.net.websocket.send(input: { socketId: string; data: string | Uint8Array }): Promise<void>
pi.net.websocket.close(input: { socketId: string; code?: number; reason?: string }): Promise<void>

Requires net.websocket. connect is confined to manifest.net.domains exactly like fetch, and connect / close are audited. Frames arrive as host events: net:websocket:open, net:websocket:message, net:websocket:close, net:websocket:error, each carrying the owning socketId, subscribed to with pi.events.on. Only the owning plugin receives them.

The host owns the socket, so a plugin cannot exceed four sockets, send or receive a frame above 1 MiB, or queue more than 4 MiB of unsent data; each of those is refused (LIMIT_EXCEEDED) or closes the connection rather than growing the host's memory. A connect carries headers and protocols, so an endpoint that authenticates per connection works without exposing the credential to plugin code. Refusals name the reason: INVALID_ARGUMENT for a non-ws(s) URL or a malformed protocol token, TIMEOUT when the handshake does not finish, CONNECT_FAILED when it fails, NOT_FOUND for a socket this plugin does not hold, and PERMISSION_DENIED when the host is not in the allowlist.

desktop control (requires desktop.control)

pi.desktop.listOperations(): Promise<Array<{
  id: string
  description: string
  risk: "read" | "write" | "dangerous"
}>>

pi.desktop.invoke(input: {
  operation: string
  args?: unknown[]
  confirm?: boolean
}): Promise<unknown>

The reviewed catalog includes session/open(sessionId) for a plugin UI to open an existing durable session. Plugin-originated session/create and agent/prompt calls refresh session state without changing the active renderer session; session/open is explicit navigation.

This is the first-party plugin gateway to the reviewed operation catalog shared with the opt-in local MCP control plane (ADR 0203 / D370). The two catalogs differ only for operations marked plugin-only: the six session/collaboration/* operations are callable through this gateway but are deliberately absent from the MCP-visible catalog (tools/list, pi_control_describe, and the pi_desktop_invoke enum), because they require an authenticated plugin invocation context and no renderer mutation channel exists for them. The returned catalog omits Electron channel names and the plugin never receives the MCP bearer token. Invocation reuses the controller, IPC handler, lifecycle checks, completion event, and audit boundary; a plugin cannot reach arbitrary Electron IPC.

A dangerous operation (session delete, permission-mode change, tool approval) needs two answers. confirm: true is the plugin's acknowledgement and is required first (CONFIRMATION_REQUIRED otherwise). The host then asks the user in a native dialog that names the catalog operation id, its catalog description, and an argument preview; the dialog never shows plugin- or model-authored text, so a prompt-injected transcript cannot relabel session/delete as something benign. A dismissed dialog, a declined dialog, or a host without a dialog service all fail with PERMISSION_DENIED before the controller is reached. Calls are logged with the plugin id, operation, risk, and result status; argument values are not copied into the audit entry.

microphone panels (requires ui.microphone)

An isolated panel may request microphone audio through the browser media API only when the manifest declares and the user grants ui.microphone:

navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia({ audio: true })

The host permission handler allows the media permission for that panel and continues to deny camera and every other device permission. The plugin does not receive a native microphone handle or a host secret; browser speech recognition and speech synthesis remain page-owned. A panel should provide a text fallback and announce permission or recognition failures through its accessible status.

Scenic Settings contribution

contributes.scenicThemes is a declarative presentation contribution, not a plugin page API. It provides localized card metadata for same-plugin themes and declared preview assets. The host owns the Settings DOM, styles, selection, focus behavior, slider draft, and Apply action. The plugin receives no Settings bridge, renderer DOM access, arbitrary CSS, JavaScript, navigation, or actions.

The host persists Apply through the existing typed theme-variable boundary and only for the declared --nexus-backdrop-blur variable. ui.panel windows and contributes.views retain their independent native-view implementation.

Theme assets declared for scenic cards may be package-relative, in which case the host resolves them inside the installed plugin package before rewriting the matching CSS url() or card preview to plugin-asset:. Absolute declared assets retain the external-path route. Neither route grants a plugin arbitrary filesystem access (ADR 0288).

audio (requires audio.capture.background / audio.playback.background)

Callable, but the device backend is not implemented in this branch. pi.audio is present in the plugin host process and exposes exactly the ten methods below. Each one keeps its permission requirement: the six capture methods (getInputDevices, openInput, closeInput, getCaptureState, onInputFrame, offInputFrame) require audio.capture.background and the four playback methods (openOutput, writeOutput, stopOutput, closeOutput) require audio.playback.background. Without the grant the call is refused with PERMISSION_DENIED and audited under the permission name, exactly like every other gated API. With the grant the host still has no device backend, so every call is answered with a coded UNSUPPORTED refusal: the message is host api not available: audio.<method> and the audit entry is { api: "audio.<method>", ok: false, errorCode: "UNSUPPORTED" }. The eight asynchronous methods reject with that error; onInputFrame / offInputFrame are synchronous registration helpers that cannot reject, so they throw an Error carrying the same code: "UNSUPPORTED" instead of registering a handler that could never fire. Nothing touches a device and no frame is ever produced. onInputFrame registers a callback — it is not an event name — and the frame shape is PluginAudioInputFrame in packages/plugin-sdk/src/index.ts. When the device service lands, the permission and this surface stay as they are and only the refusal is replaced by real behaviour: the host owns the device, a plugin exchanges PCM16 frames and never receives a device handle, MediaStream, OS device path, or Node stream, one input stream per plugin is allowed, and disable, unload, or crash stops capture and drops queued playback.

pi.audio.getInputDevices(): Promise<PluginAudioInputDevice[]>
pi.audio.openInput(options?: PluginAudioOpenInputOptions): Promise<PluginAudioInputSession>
pi.audio.closeInput(streamId: string): Promise<void>
pi.audio.getCaptureState(): Promise<PluginAudioCaptureState>
pi.audio.onInputFrame(handler: (frame: PluginAudioInputFrame) => void): void
pi.audio.offInputFrame(handler: (frame: PluginAudioInputFrame) => void): void
pi.audio.openOutput(options: PluginAudioOpenOutputOptions): Promise<PluginAudioOutputSession>
pi.audio.writeOutput(input: { streamId: string; data: Uint8Array }): Promise<void>
pi.audio.stopOutput(streamId: string): Promise<void>
pi.audio.closeOutput(streamId: string): Promise<void>

keyboard (requires keyboard.globalShortcut)

pi.keyboard.registerGlobalShortcut(input: {
  id: string
  accelerator: string
  command: string
}): Promise<PluginGlobalShortcut>

pi.keyboard.unregisterGlobalShortcut(id: string): Promise<void>
pi.keyboard.listGlobalShortcuts(): Promise<PluginGlobalShortcut[]>

type PluginGlobalShortcut = {
  id: string
  accelerator: string
  command: string
  registered: boolean
  error?: string
}

The host, not the plugin, owns Electron's globalShortcut. A plugin maps an accelerator to one of its own commands, and the host registers, conflict-checks, triggers, and releases it; no keyboard hook, before-input-event, raw input device, or key event stream is ever exposed, and a trigger runs exactly one command belonging to that plugin.

command must already be registered by the calling plugin; anything else fails INVALID_ARGUMENT. An accelerator reserved by the operating system, one PI-Desktop itself currently spends (by default Alt+Space opens the plugin launcher and Alt+Shift+W shows or hides the window; once the user rebinds one of them, the freed accelerator is available again), or one held by another plugin is refused rather than taken over, and a refused re-registration leaves the previous binding in place. Refusals are returned, not thrown: registerGlobalShortcut resolves with registered: false and an error of SHORTCUT_CONFLICT, SHORTCUT_UNAVAILABLE (platform refusal), INVALID_ACCELERATOR, or LIMIT_EXCEEDED (at most 8 entries per plugin). UNSUPPORTED and INVALID_ARGUMENT are thrown. Registering an id again replaces that entry's accelerator.

Every contributes.globalShortcuts entry that declares a default is registered by the host after the plugin's load, but only when its command actually registered; an entry without a default waits for a registerGlobalShortcut call. unregisterGlobalShortcut drops one entry and does nothing for an unknown id; listGlobalShortcuts lists what the host currently holds for the calling plugin. Everything is released on disable, unload, and crash, and register / unregister are audited.

4. Error model

type PluginApiError = {
 code:
 | "PERMISSION_DENIED"
 | "NOT_FOUND"
 | "INVALID_ARGUMENT"
 | "TIMEOUT"
 | "UNSUPPORTED"
 | "LIMIT_EXCEEDED" // a per-plugin cap is full (e.g. bus subscriptions)
 | "RATE_LIMITED" // a rolling window is exhausted (e.g. bus publishes)
 | "CONFIRMATION_REQUIRED" // a dangerous desktop operation without confirm: true
 | "INTERNAL"
 message: string
}

All API failures throw an error carrying a code.

5. Events (host -> plugin)

pi.events.on(event, handler)
pi.events.off(event, handler)

The host pushes events to the plugin process as one-way frames. pi.events is not a separate channel: it is an alias over the same per-plugin bus stream that pi.bus.subscribe consumes (plugin-host-process.mjs), so an on handler sees every frame the host delivers to this plugin and nothing else. Delivered today:

  • bus.message — a bus delivery, with the PluginBusMessage as the single argument. pi.bus.subscribe is the normal way to receive these; events.on sees the raw stream of every subscription the plugin holds.
  • workspace:changed — payload is the workspace.get() object or null, sent when the cached workspace path changes: the primary path and name, plus projectId and roots when the folder belongs to a project group (ADR 0263). The first workspace of a run may arrive once without the folders and repeat once with them, because the group records are read after that first push.
  • plugin:settingsChanged is delivered after edits from the generated Plugins settings UI.
  • appearance:changed — payload is PluginAppearance, sent whenever the app palette or language changes, so a plugin process can relabel live the same way an open panel does (ADR 0280).
  • session:modelChanged — { sessionId, modelKey, thinkingLevel }, sent after a successful session.configure that changes provider, model, or thinking level.
  • session:turnEnded — payload is { sessionId: string; turnId: string; reason: "completed" | "aborted" | "error" }, sent once per host turn at the end of its teardown, after the durable session.endTurn attempt. A turn is the one session.beginTurn created: a user submission, an approved plan execution, or a scheduled run, and a queued item that never started produces no event. completed, aborted, and error are the three terminal reasons. The event carries the turnId the terminal runtime event identified, not whichever turn happens to be active, so a late event from an earlier turn cannot settle a newer one. Delivery is fire-and-forget: there is no ack and no replay, so a plugin that is alive and subscribed receives it once, and a delivery that races a plugin crash, reload, or host quit is not guaranteed. Receiving it does not mean every in-flight tool of that turn has exited — late results can still arrive — so a plugin must serialise or otherwise scope its cleanup by turnId. The event also needs no new permission: it travels on the existing event channel, and subscribing to an unknown event name does not error. No published host emits it yet — 0.14.8 does not include it — so a plugin that depends on it must require the release that actually ships it rather than assume 0.14.7 or 0.14.8.

A throwing handler is logged and does not affect other listeners or the plugin.

Planned events:

  • session:activated

6. Panel bridge API

The Panel UI does not get the full pi directly; instead:

window.pluginBridge.invoke(channel, payload?)
window.pluginBridge.on(event, handler)

The same bridge serves both plugin surfaces: a detached ui.panel window and a contributes.views surface docked in the work panel (ADR 0104). The channel list, the permission gate, and the preload are identical, so one HTML entry works in either placement. The only differences are chrome and the view location below: a docked view has no window-control capsule and no drag band, and its --pi-plugin-titlebar-height is 0px rather than 46px.

Detached panel pages using the current chrome contract declare <meta name="pi-plugin-chrome" content="v2"> and use the published variable for normal-flow top spacing. The host preserves that page-owned spacing. A page without the marker remains supported through the legacy additive offset.

6.1 Floating widgets

A manifest may declare "ui": { "shape": "widget" }. The panel then opens as a floating widget: the same sandboxed, permission-gated page in a transparent, frameless window with no 46px drag band, no control capsule, and no rectangular native shadow. The page owns its whole rectangle and normally paints a silhouette smaller than it — a round orb, for instance — so the host must not draw a frame around that silhouette.

  • --pi-plugin-titlebar-height is 0px, and the legacy additive top offset is not applied either, whatever chrome marker the page declares.
  • The placement is published before page scripts run as document.documentElement.dataset.piPluginPanelShape: panel, widget, or view.
  • Dragging uses a whole-window drag map: empty space moves the window, while standard controls (button, input, a, [tabindex], …) and every element marked data-pi-plugin-no-drag stay clickable.
  • A widget has no capsule, so the host owns an equivalent menu behind the surface's own context menu: close, minimize, and always on top. A plugin may still close its own widget through ui.closePanel().
  • ui.width / ui.height are honoured down to 120×120 (a panel's minimum stays 360×280). ui.alwaysOnTop pins a widget above other windows, and ui.resizable defaults to false for a widget and true for a panel.
  • Nothing else changes: same preload, same pluginBridge channels, same permission gate, same session partition and egress policy.

A docked view may also be given one subject to show. The location a work-panel tab already carries is delivered to any contributed view — not only pi.browser, whose address bar keeps its own navigation channel: on creation it travels as the view entry URL's piViewOpen query parameter, and once the document has finished loading it arrives as the view:open event. A location that reaches the host before the first load restarts the load instead, and a view that is already loaded is never navigated, so unsaved work inside a plugin is not discarded; re-opening the same location does nothing. The payload is opaque to the host — each plugin decides what its location means — and it needs no permission and adds no SDK method.

The host-owned preload forwards only fixed channels to the plugin runtime:

Channel Required permission
ui.showToast, ui.closePanel None beyond the loaded panel
ui.notify notify
ui.getNotificationPermission, ui.requestNotificationPermission, ui.showNativeNotification notify
plugin.getSettings, workspace.get, app.getAppearance None
app.setTheme, themes.upsert, themes.remove, themes.list ui.theme
models.list models.list
fs.readText, fs.stat, fs.readRange, fs.readPreview, fs.openDefault, fs.reveal, fs.glob, fs.list fs.read
fs.writeText fs.write
clipboard.readText, clipboard.getHistory clipboard.read
clipboard.writeText clipboard.write
shell.openExternal shell.openExternal
net.fetch net.fetch

plugin.setSettings, fs.remove, and arbitrary Electron IPC are not exposed. A channel the host does not implement itself is forwarded to the plugin's onPanelInvoke(channel, payload), so a plugin may define its own panel ↔ main channels; a plugin that exports no onPanelInvoke gets UNSUPPORTED from its own process. The host-supported channels include skill.list, skill.read, skill.create, skill.update, skill.remove, and skill.setEnabled.

Panel events (host -> panel)

window.pluginBridge.on(event, handler) receives host-pushed events. The host sends the same events to detached panel windows and to docked work-panel views. Delivered today:

  • appearance:changed — payload is the PluginAppearance above, sent whenever the app's palette or language changes, so a panel can restyle and relabel live.
  • workspace:changed — payload is the workspace.get() object or null, sent when the open project changes: the primary path and name, plus projectId and roots when the folder belongs to a project group (ADR 0263).
  • view:open (docked work-panel views only; a detached ui.panel window never receives it) — payload is { path: string }, the location the host asked this view to show. A view created with a location already carried it in its entry URL; this event delivers a later one.
  • session:turnEnded — the same payload as the plugin-process event in §5, sent when a host turn reaches a terminal state.

7. Call auditing

Any of the following calls must be logged for audit:

  • fs.writeText
  • fs.stat, fs.readRange, fs.remove, fs.requestDirectory, and every refused fs call (with its path and errorCode), plus each consent answer and why it was asked (scope / rate)
  • fs.openDefault (with its root-relative path and whether the OS open succeeded)
  • fs.reveal (with its root-relative path and whether the file manager reveal succeeded)
  • fs.readPreview (with its root-relative path and classified kind)
  • execute after agent.registerTool (including tools discovered from a plugin's MCP servers)
  • net.fetch
  • shell.openExternal
  • clipboard.read/write (may be sampled)
  • clipboard.getHistory (with the returned entry count)
  • bus.publish / bus.subscribe / bus.unsubscribe (with the topic and fan-out size)
  • browser.navigate / evaluate / cdp / openExternal
  • service start / stop / restart
  • models.list (returned row count)
  • session.getLlmContext (session id, message count, truncated flag — never transcript text)
  • agent.complete (model key, sizes, usage — never prompt or completion text)

Log fields:

  • pluginId
  • api
  • ts
  • sessionId?
  • ok / errorCode
  • status / retryAfter (net.fetch: the upstream status of a completed call, and for a failed one the Retry-After it stated — never the header set or body)

8. Versioning strategy

  • The API surface is managed by apiVersion
  • MVP apiVersion = 1
  • A deprecated API is retained for at least one major version cycle

9. Implementation status

The desktop plugin runtime now implements the MVP host API surface used by local and marketplace plugins:

  • app.*, plugin.*, commands.*, ui.*, workspace.*
  • fs.readText / fs.stat / fs.readRange / fs.readPreview / fs.openDefault / fs.reveal / fs.writeText / fs.glob / fs.list / fs.remove / fs.requestDirectory, bounded by manifest.fs (ADR 0088)
  • agent.registerTool / unregisterTool / agent.complete
  • speech.registerAdapter / unregisterAdapter (speech.adapter.register)
  • models.list, session.getLlmContext
  • clipboard.*, shell.openExternal, net.fetch
  • browser.* (guest CDP; browser.cdp)
  • services.register / unregister, bus.publish / subscribe, events.on / off
  • keyboard.registerGlobalShortcut / unregisterGlobalShortcut / listGlobalShortcuts (keyboard.globalShortcut; the host owns Electron globalShortcut)
  • net.websocket.connect / send / close (net.websocket; host-owned sockets, allowlist-confined, bounded, released with the plugin)

pi.audio.* is present in the plugin host process and callable: all ten methods are gated by audio.capture.background / audio.playback.background, and this branch ships no device backend, so an authorized call is answered with a coded UNSUPPORTED refusal under the method's own audit entry (audio.<method>, ok: false); onInputFrame / offInputFrame throw the same code synchronously because they cannot reject. No device is opened.

Native plugin notifications use the Electron main-process notification surface; they do not create durable rows in the task notification inbox and do not activate a session on click.

Declarative contributions have no pi.* counterpart on purpose: skills, themes, and MCP servers are read from the manifest by the host, so a plugin cannot add one at runtime.

All high-risk entry points assert declared+granted permissions and emit audit log lines. Plugin panels no longer receive the full pi object; they use window.pluginBridge.invoke.