Plug-in brokers are special services that, given a plug-in meta.yaml file:

  • Gather all the information to provide a Che plug-in definition that the Che server knows.

  • Perform preparation actions in the workspace namespace (download, unpack files, process configuration).

The main goal of the plug-in broker is to decouple the Che plug-in definition from the actual plug-ins that Che can support. With brokers, Che can support different plug-ins without updating the Che server.

The Che server starts the plug-in broker. The plug-in broker runs in the same Kubernetes namespace as the workspace. It has access to the plug-ins and project persistent volumes.

A plug-in broker is defined as a container image (for example, eclipse/che-plugin-broker). The plug-in type determines the type of the broker that is started. Two types of plug-ins are supported: Che plug-in and Che editor.

Source code

Che Plug-in broker

Container image

eclipse/che-init-plugin-broker
eclipse/che-unified-plugin-broker