Liatir Plugin API

This is the API you need to use in order to develop a .lia plugin that can run inside the Liatir local environment. The Liatir Plugin API allows you to define the plugin, providing the entry point and the context where you can implement your logic and use the API bridge.

Runtimes

• Node declares it with definePlugin({...}) from @liatir/api.
• Python declares it with define_plugin(...) from the CLI-managed liatir module scaffolded next to the entry point.
• WASM declares it with define_plugin() from the CLI-managed src/liatir.rs module.

Authoring

Every .lia plugin declares its inputs and outputs once, in code, and attaches the implementation to that contract. liatir build reads the contract back and generates manifest.json from it — there is no schema to write or keep in sync by hand.

This is the same API shape in all three runtimes:

• Node — definePlugin({ inputs, outputs }).main(handler) from @liatir/api.

• Python — define_plugin(inputs=..., outputs=...) + @plugin.main from the CLI-managed liatir module.

• WASM (Rust) — define_plugin().input(...).output(...).main(handler) from the CLI-managed liatir module.

• Plugin context

• Defining plugin

• Declaring I/O fields

API bridge

The Liatir object passed to .main(...) is the Node plugin bridge. It connects the plugin process to the running Liatir desktop app through local IPC.

Python plugins get the same bridge on their handler context as ctx.liatir, using snake_case method names (e.g. ctx.liatir.jobs.list(), ctx.liatir.deps.check(...), ctx.liatir.invoke(...)). It covers the same areas below except the typed bio helpers (align/qc/variants), which Python reaches through ctx.liatir.invoke. WASM plugins are sandboxed and do not have API bridge access.

Area	Use it for
Jobs	Spawn, wait for, stream, and inspect Liatir jobs.
Deps	Check whether command-line binaries are available.
Desktop fs	Scoped Liatir storage.
Desktop app info	App and OS information.
Invoke method	Low-level IPC escape hatch.