A plug-in registry is a simple service that hosts metadata about the enabled plug-ins.

To retrieve a full list of plug-ins hosted in a registry, navigate to the <registry-base-uri>/v3/plugins/index.json file.

Each plug-in item in the list is represented by a JSON definition.

Sample plug-in definition
  {
    "description": "This extension provides a live preview, syntax highlighting and snippets for the AsciiDoc format using Asciidoctor flavor.",
    "displayName": "AsciiDoc support",
    "id": "joaompinto/vscode-asciidoctor/latest",
    "links": {
      "self": "/v3/plugins/joaompinto/vscode-asciidoctor/latest/"
    },
    "name": "vscode-asciidoctor",
    "publisher": "joaompinto",
    "type": "VS Code extension",
    "version": "latest"
  }

This definition contains a links section that points to the complete plug-in description (meta.yaml).

Sample plug-in meta.yaml file
publisher: joaompinto
apiVersion: v2
version: latest
type: VS Code extension
name: vscode-asciidoctor
displayName: AsciiDoc support
title: AsciiDoctor Plugin.
description: This extension provides a live preview, syntax highlighting, and snippets
  for the AsciiDoc format using Asciidoctor flavor.
icon: https://www.eclipse.org/che/images/logo-eclipseche.svg
category: Language
repository: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-vscode
firstPublicationDate: '2019-09-09'
spec:
  extensions:
    - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery/publishers/joaompinto/vsextensions/asciidoctor-vscode/2.7.6/vspackage
latestUpdateDate: "2019-12-09"

For more details about the meta.yaml structure, see [che-theia-plug-in-metadata_what-is-a-che-theia-plug-in].

Official plug-in registry

The official Che plug-in registry is at che-plugin-registry.openshift.io. By default, the Che dashboard shows editors and plug-ins from this registry.

The source is located at github.com/eclipse/che-plugin-registry.

Custom plug-in registries

For more information about setting up a custom registry, see the description of the official registry repository.

To use plug-ins from a custom registry, follow one of the methods below.:

  • Specify a link to the plug-in in the configuration of a workspace. See Adding a plug-in into a workspace using the workspace configuration.

  • Replace the default official registry with a custom one in your Che instance. To do so, set the PLUGIN_REGISTRY_IMAGE environment variable in your Che configuration. Note that plug-ins from the official registry are not available from the dashboard interface. To include them, add references to your registry from the official registry.

Additional resources