Plugins (.lia)

Build anything on top of Liatir: .lia plugins are based on Node or WASM, so if you can build it in Node or WASM, you can plug it into Liatir. They appear in the Plugins area and can run as pipeline nodes or by itself, just like Liatir native tools.

A .lia plugin file is a bundle built with @liatir/cli and imported into Liatir. It declares:

• metadata such as name, version, description, category, and tags;
• input fields shown in the UI;
• output fields that later pipeline steps can consume;
• the runtime, either node or wasm.

INFO

Plugins must follow the Liatir I/O standard, but don't worry — the Liatir CLI scaffolds that for you.

Node plugins

Node plugins are the recommended starting point for most custom logic. A Node plugin is written in TypeScript or JavaScript and uses @liatir/api.

The plugin contract is declared once in definePlugin({ inputs, outputs }). liatir build reads that contract from the compiled code and generates the .lia manifest automatically.

import { definePlugin, field, type PluginContext } from "@liatir/api";

// This is just an example. Edit inputs and outputs definitions and the plugin logic to implement your solutions.

const liatirPlugin = definePlugin({
  inputs: {
    text: field.string({
      label: "Text",
      description: "Text to analyze.",
      required: true,
      default: "hello from Liatir",
    }),
  },
  outputs: {
    length: field.number({
      label: "Length",
      description: "Number of characters in the input text.",
      format: "integer",
    }),
  },
});

export default liatirPlugin.main(async ({ input, Liatir }: PluginContext<typeof liatirPlugin>) => {

  // Write the plugin logic here

  return {
    length: input.text.length,
  };
});

Do not write a separate Node plugin manifest by hand. Do not export a standalone run() function. Do not write result markers to stdout. Return the output object from .main(...); Liatir handles packaging, execution, logs, and result parsing.

What a Node plugin can use

The lia object passed to .main(...) is a Node bridge to the running Liatir app. It includes:

• Liatir.jobs for running and tracking local command-line processes;
• Liatir.deps for checking whether binaries are available;
• Liatir.desktop.fs for scoped Liatir storage;
• Liatir.desktop.files, Liatir.desktop.app, diagnostics, notifications, clipboard, network, and global variables where meaningful in a headless process;
• typed bio namespaces such as Liatir.qc, Liatir.align, and Liatir.variants;
• lower-level Liatir.plugins, Liatir.sidecar, and Liatir.invoke escape hatches.

Node plugins can also use normal Node.js APIs and bundled npm dependencies.

WASM plugins

WASM .lia plugins are Rust tools compiled to wasm32-wasip1. They are more sandboxed than Node plugins:

• input JSON is read from stdin;
• output JSON is written to stdout;
• the schema lives in .lia-manifest.json;
• no arbitrary host filesystem or network access is available;
• directories containing declared file inputs are mounted read-only by Liatir.

---

INFO

• Use WASM for portable, sandboxed computation.
• Use Node plugins when you need the Liatir bridge, local process management, or the flexibility of the Node environment and libraries.