TAI42 — the OS for AI tools

A connector is data, not code: its whole definition is a ProviderDescriptor — the provider’s OAuth endpoints, its sub-services and scopes, and the env var names that hold the operator’s client credentials. So a connector ships as a descriptor-only plugin: a tai-plugin.yml with no package, delivered by spec. There is nothing to build and nothing to pip-install — publishing the descriptor publishes the whole integration. This page walks the path end to end. For the file-format rules your docs follow, see Author plugin docs; for the model behind the descriptor, see the ProviderDescriptor reference.

Scaffold the plugin

tai plugins init writes a valid, ready-to-edit descriptor tree. A connector needs --auth — oauth for an OAuth provider, none for a no-auth one:

tai plugins init connector-acme --kind connector --auth oauth

The written tree parses as a plugin spec and its docs validate as-is, so you edit placeholders rather than start from a blank file. Print the full schema of a tai-plugin.yml anytime with:

tai plugins schema

Fill the descriptor

Open tai-plugin.yml and replace every placeholder — the acme identifiers, the example.invalid endpoints, and the icon — with your provider’s real values:

tai-plugin.yml

spec_version: 1
namespace: acme            # your marketplace namespace (never tai42)
name: connector-acme
version: 0.1.0
display_name: Acme
description: OAuth connector provider for Acme.
icon: https://cdn.acme.example/icon.png
license: Apache-2.0
repository: https://github.com/acme/connector-acme
contract: '>=10.0,<11'
categories: [connectors]
provides:
  - kind: connector
    # The connector item name MUST equal provider.id below — it is the manifest
    # and uninstall key. Rename both together.
    name: acme
    description: OAuth connector for Acme.
    provider:
      id: acme
      kind: oauth
      origin: community      # 'system' is reserved for the tai42 namespace
      category: communication
      display_name: Acme
      description: Connect your Acme account.
      icon_url: https://cdn.acme.example/icon.png
      oauth:
        authorize: https://acme.example/oauth/authorize
        token: https://acme.example/oauth/token
        revoke: https://acme.example/oauth/revoke
      # The operator sets these to their OWN OAuth client credentials at install;
      # the client secret is masked automatically.
      client_id_env: CONNECTORS_ACME_CLIENT_ID
      client_secret_env: CONNECTORS_ACME_CLIENT_SECRET
      sub_services:
        acme:
          id: acme
          display_name: Acme
          description: Acme on its hosted MCP server.
          scopes: [https://acme.example/auth/acme.readonly]
          mcp_server:
            type: http
            url: https://acme.example/mcp

A few rules the model enforces, loud on validation:

No package. Omitting it is what makes the plugin descriptor-only. Its delivery derives to descriptor, and installing it touches no environment beyond the config it declares.
icon and icon_url are https:// URLs. The catalog serves the brand mark verbatim; there is no bundled asset to host, and a non-https URL is refused.
origin matches the namespace. A tai42 listing may claim system; every community listing is community.
The connector item name equals provider.id. That id is the manifest key the install patches into the server’s connectors list.

Then write the operator notes in docs/index.mdx — what OAuth client the operator registers with the provider, which scopes it needs, and the redirect URI to configure. Keep it a thin provider page; link platform features to their central docs rather than re-documenting them.

Publish

Open a pull request

Commit the filled tree to the plugin’s repository and open a PR. The same docs contract the marketplace enforces runs in CI, so a page that would fail ingest fails the PR first.

Tag the release

Tag the version to match tai-plugin.yml (and version.txt, which exists only so release tooling has a version file to read). The marketplace resolves a descriptor listing by its <namespace>-<name> tag component.

Seed the listing

The marketplace ingests the tag: for a descriptor it fetches the raw tai-plugin.yml at that tag, records its digest, and lists it with source: spec — no wheel, no PyPI lookup. The listing and its docs/ render under Plugins automatically; you never open a PR against the docs site.

Once listed, an operator installs it like any plugin — supplying their own client credentials — and the server registers the descriptor with no code on the box:

tai plugins install acme/connector-acme \
  --env CONNECTORS_ACME_CLIENT_ID=... \
  --env CONNECTORS_ACME_CLIENT_SECRET=... \
  --secret CONNECTORS_ACME_CLIENT_SECRET

--env KEY=VALUE supplies every value; --secret KEY is a bare mark that hides one (the server also auto-marks the connector’s client_secret_env). See Installing a descriptor-only plugin for what the server does with it.

Checklist

tai plugins init scaffolds every file below; confirm each is filled before you tag:

tai-plugin.yml — no package; real namespace/name/version, provider endpoints, scopes, and client_*_env names.
README.md — the repository’s own front page.
docs/index.mdx — the operator setup notes rendered under Plugins; front matter is exactly title and description.
icon.png — the brand-mark image committed in the repo AND published at a raw https:// URL; icon and icon_url both point at that https URL (http, relative, or empty is rejected).
version.txt — equals the version in tai-plugin.yml.
CHANGELOG.md — Keep-a-Changelog format.
LICENSE — the plugin’s license.
NOTICE — attributions, including the source of the icon brand mark.

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Plugins

Publish a connector without code

Scaffold the plugin

Fill the descriptor

Publish

Checklist

See also

​Scaffold the plugin

​Fill the descriptor

​Publish

​Checklist

​See also

Scaffold the plugin

Fill the descriptor

Publish

Checklist

See also