Community Market / Plugins

[NotReeceHarris]

I want to discuss the possibility of introducing a community-based plugin system for Karrio to handle integrations with carriers not yet supported by the project. The company i work for has a warehouse management system that uses Karrio to manage shipping and tracking, but we've noticed a significant gap when some of our clients use carriers that Karrio doesn't support. It feels redundant to develop separate systems for shipping outside of Karrio, which seems counterproductive.

I believe a plugin system where community members can contribute their own integrations would be immensely beneficial. This could help distribute the workload on maintainers, allowing them to focus on other aspects of Karrio while expanding its capabilities through community efforts.

I understand that we can modify the source code directly, but I'm a fan of having official Docker images and the convenience of just uploading a zip file for integrations, much like how plugins work in WordPress. If there's already a way to create such plugins that I've missed, I would love to know. Otherwise, implementing a system like this for developers could be a game-changer for Karrio.

[IEccles]

+1, would really like this

[danh91]

Hi @NotReeceHarris ,

I explored this a couple of times trying to find a good way to approach and architect such a plugin system.
The carrier integrations are technically in their own Python package and dynamically loaded at runtime to accomplish something similar 🤔
https://docs.karrio.io/carriers/sdk/extension

They are not simple zip files that could be uploaded on a dedicated installation but Pypi packages that could be installed in the context of a custom build. the code could come from anywhere, even a custom repository, and work as long as it follows the extension structure from the documentation. I agree that it is more complex to do a custom build and add the reference to a custom Python package like this:

karrio/requirements.txt

Line 48 in cd58784

-e git+https://github.com/karrioapi/karrio.git@9a74dcf71d5bbafcab596954c5e9c1f81847d642#egg=karrio&subdirectory=modules/sdk

Do you have experience with Python and architecting something like this?
I will play with the idea next weekend to see what I can come up with. Creating a plugin that doesn't require to be installed with Pypi should be feasible. 🤔

Let me know if you have some ideas or something you can help with.

Cheers

[NotReeceHarris]

Thanks for the reply @danh91,

A Pypi package for individual integrations would be a better idea, considering my current workload. I’m developing a warehouse management system and other things, which is quite hectic. However, I could allocate a day or two to researching and potentially implementing part of this idea.

(A plugin system would save me a lot of time 😂)

Your suggestion of having the integrations as unique Pypi packages is likely to work well. Additionally, creating a file to aggregate these packages could simulate a “marketplace.” However, since it’s all open-source, a more appropriate name would be better.

I’ll do some research and create a fork. Should I keep this discussion open or create an issue?

"Notes

I think plugins should be installed through pypi that way it keeps open-source alive.