Table of Contents

Plugin-heavy platform

A host application that is mostly a shell, with features delivered as CodeLogic plugins: a shop module, a forum module, a reporting module, each deployed and updated on its own.

How it fits together

  • The host registers the shared services (stores, notifier, theme) and the layout.
  • Each plugin implements IPlugin and IWebContributor, and contributes its routes, forms, widgets, templates and realtime bridges in ContributeAsync (Plugins).
  • WebLogic registers a plugin's contributions when it loads and removes them all when it unloads; the routing table updates without a restart.
public Task ContributeAsync(WebContributionBuilder b, CancellationToken ct)
{
    b.MapTemplates(typeof(ForumPlugin).Assembly);           // theme/forum/*.html inside the plugin
    b.MapForm<NewTopicForm>();
    b.MapFormOptions(new ForumCategoryOptions(b.Services.GetRequiredService<ForumStore>()));

    var forum = b.MapGroup("/forum");
    forum.MapPage("", IndexAsync).AllowAnonymous().WithOutputCache("forum");
    forum.MapPage("/new", NewTopicAsync, "POST").WithRateLimit("posting");

    b.MapWidget("latest-topics", LatestTopicsAsync, o => o.AllowAnonymous());
    b.PlaceWidget("sidebar", "latest-topics");
    return Task.CompletedTask;
}

Boundaries

A plugin can A plugin cannot
Add routes, groups, forms, options, validators, widgets, placements, templates, page scripts, realtime bridges Add request-level security stages
Use host services from b.Services Replace forms or templates the host registered
Ship templates the site theme can override Change security settings or anonymous access of routes it does not own

Plugin routes get the same defaults as host routes: sign-in required unless AllowAnonymous(), CSRF, rate limits, and they appear in the explorer with the plugin as their owner.

Theming plugins

Plugins ship default templates as embedded resources (theme/forum/index.html → forum/index). The site theme overrides any of them by placing a file with the same path, so a designer can restyle a plugin without touching its code. Plugin templates use the host's layouts ({layout:layouts/main}) and partials.

Data

Each plugin owns its persistence: its own tables, files or service. Share infrastructure (a database connection, a storage account) through host services, not through WebLogic.

Packaging and deployment

Plugins compile against WebLogic but load the host's copy (ExcludeAssets="runtime", CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies=false). Deploy the plugin's assembly into the CodeLogic plugins folder; samples/Plugins/MiniBlog.Admin.Plugin and the MiniBlog Dockerfile show the whole path.

Unloading safely

Unloading removes routes immediately; requests in flight finish. Avoid holding references to plugin types in host statics or caches, so the plugin's load context can be collected (WebLogic's own caches use weak references for this).

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