Creating Your Own Plugins

This section explains how to create custom plugins that extend actor-IaC functionality.

Plugin Types

actor-IaC supports different types of plugins depending on the use case.

Type	Purpose	Implementation
General Plugin	Any functionality callable from workflows	POJO + IIAR
SectionBuilder	Report sections for ReportBuilder	SectionBuilder implementation + IIAR

Documentation Structure

1. Principles

Basic principles common to all plugins:

• POJO + IIAR architecture
• pom.xml configuration
• Build and deployment

2. General Plugin

Implement arbitrary functionality callable from workflows:

• Data aggregation using DB connections
• External API integration
• Custom processing

3. SectionBuilder Plugin

Implement report sections for ReportBuilder:

• SectionBuilder interface
• generate(), getTitle()
• Registration with ReportBuilder

Common Prerequisites

Loading and Creating with Actor Names

Plugins are loaded and created through the loader actor.

# Load JAR
- actor: loader
  method: loadJar
  arguments: ["plugins/my-plugin-1.0.0.jar"]

# Create actor
- actor: loader
  method: createChild
  arguments: ["parentActorName", "actorName", "fully.qualified.ClassName"]

Available System Resources

Major resources available from plugins:

Resource	How to Obtain	Purpose
DB Connection	DistributedLogStore.getInstance().getConnection()	Log DB queries
Session ID	nodeGroup.callByActionName("getSessionId", "")	Current workflow session
Actor System	Constructor argument	Access to other actors

Reference Implementations

Standard implementations included in actor-IaC serve as references for plugin development:

Package	Contents
com.scivicslab.actoriac.report.sections.basic	Standard SectionBuilders
com.scivicslab.actoriac.report	ReportBuilder itself