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The marketplace is the ecosystem’s plugin index. A running server browses it, installs a plugin from it in one command, and hears from it when a published version turns out to be bad.

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A metadata index

The registry stores metadata, never packages. A listing points at the plugin’s real distribution channel — its pip package and its source repository — and installing resolves that pointer and installs by source: a GitHub-sourced release is downloaded and its SHA-256 verified against the digest the registry recorded at ingest, while a PyPI-sourced release pins the exact version and relies on PyPI’s file immutability. The registry’s catalog is curated: it lists the ecosystem’s first-party plugins, and every listing carries an official trust tier.

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Listings and items

One installable plugin carries many capabilities: a single package can ship tools, extensions, and agents together. The registry indexes each contained capability as its own item row with a kind, categories, and tags — because an item is what you search for. You search at item level and install at plugin level: finding the generate_uuid tool leads you to install the listing that carries it.

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Versions

Each listing publishes versions. A version records the exact release, its artifact, and the tai42-contract compatibility range it declares, so a server can tell whether a release fits its contract before installing. The registry validates every release’s artifact against its listing before publishing it — a release that fails validation is never served.

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Advisories and the kill switch

An advisory flags affected versions of a listing with a severity and a summary. Separately, a version can be killed — a registry-side kill switch that refuses to resolve that version at all, so it can never be installed. The two are distinct: an advisory is a published warning that can later be withdrawn, while a killed version is pinned out of resolution. See Advisories for how a server checks.

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The plugin descriptor: tai-plugin.yml

Every plugin describes itself with a tai-plugin.yml — the plugin descriptor — at its repository root and inside its built wheel. It names the listing, the package, the version, the contract range, and the provides list of every item the plugin carries. The registry indexes a plugin from this file and validates the artifact against it; the installer uses the provides list to patch the server manifest per provided item. It is a different file from the server manifest: tai-plugin.yml describes what a plugin offers, the server manifest declares what a server loads. See The plugin descriptor to author one.

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Installing into a server

Install is a server-side operation: the server resolves the listing, installs the verified package into its own environment, patches its manifest per provided item, and reloads. The server records the marketplace ref and installed version locally, so installed, update checks, and advisories answer from local truth. The whole flow is one CLI command or one Studio click — see Install a plugin.

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See also