zeph-plugins

Plugin packaging, installation, and runtime config overlay for Zeph.

Overview

Manages the full lifecycle of Zeph plugin packages: installing from a path or URL, removing, listing, and applying tighten-only config overlays at bootstrap and on hot-reload. Each plugin lives in a subdirectory under the managed plugins root and may bundle skills, MCP server definitions, and a .plugin.toml overlay fragment. Security invariants are enforced at both install time and load time.

Key types

Type	Description
`PluginManager`	Install, remove, and list plugins in the managed directory
`PluginMeta`	Parsed `.plugin.toml` manifest (name, version, description, overlay)
`ResolvedOverlay`	Result of merging all installed plugin overlays into the live config
`PluginError`	Typed error enum (Io, Parse, UnsafeOverlay, Conflict, PathTraversal)

Key modules

Module	Description
`manager`	`PluginManager` — install/remove/list with path-traversal defense (`canonicalize + starts_with(root)`), recursive `.bundled` marker stripping, symlink skip, and atomic install-then-verify
`overlay`	`apply_plugin_config_overlays` — scans installed plugins, validates overlays, and merges tighten-only keys into the live `Config` struct
`validate`	Install-time and load-time safelist validation for overlay keys

Plugin format

A plugin is a directory with the following layout:

my-plugin/
    .plugin.toml          # required: manifest and config overlay
    skills/               # optional: bundled SKILL.md files
    mcp.toml              # optional: additional MCP server definitions

Minimal .plugin.toml:

[plugin]
name        = "my-plugin"
version     = "1.0.0"
description = "Does something useful"

[overlay]
# All keys are optional. Only tighten-only operations are permitted.
# tools.blocked_commands is merged via union (plugin can only add to the blocklist)
# tools.allowed_commands is merged via intersection (plugin can only narrow the allowlist)
# skills.disambiguation_threshold is merged via max (plugin can only raise the threshold)
tools.blocked_commands         = ["curl", "wget"]
skills.disambiguation_threshold = 0.25

[!IMPORTANT] Keys outside the safelist (blocked_commands, allowed_commands, disambiguation_threshold) are rejected at install time with PluginError::UnsafeOverlay. Plugins cannot widen the command allowlist — if the base allowlist is empty, allowed_commands intersection is a no-op.

Install and manage plugins

CLI

# Install a plugin from a local path or URL
zeph plugin add ./path/to/my-plugin
zeph plugin add https://example.com/my-plugin.tar.gz

# List installed plugins
zeph plugin list

# Remove a plugin
zeph plugin remove my-plugin

TUI slash commands

/plugins list            # list installed plugins
/plugins add <path|url>  # install a plugin
/plugins remove <name>   # uninstall a plugin

Config overlay merge

At bootstrap (AppBuilder::new) and on hot-reload (reload_config), apply_plugin_config_overlays is called to merge all installed plugin overlays into the live Config. The merge is deterministic: plugins are processed in directory-sorted order to ensure reproducible results.

ResolvedOverlay carries diagnostic fields:

Field	Description
`source_plugins`	Names of plugins whose overlay was successfully applied
`skipped_plugins`	Names of plugins whose overlay was skipped (validation failure, I/O error)
`merged_blocked_commands`	Final union of all plugin `blocked_commands` contributions
`merged_disambiguation_threshold`	Final max of all `disambiguation_threshold` contributions

[!WARNING] Hot-reload applies skills.disambiguation_threshold immediately. Changes to tools.blocked_commands or tools.allowed_commands require an agent restart to take full effect — the live ShellExecutor is built once at startup. A banner is emitted in the status channel when a restart is required.

Security model

Install-time validation — overlay keys are checked against the safelist; unsafe keys abort the install with a clear error.
Load-time re-validation — the safelist check is re-run at every bootstrap and hot-reload as defence-in-depth against post-install tampering.
.bundled marker stripping — .bundled marker files in the installed package are stripped recursively to prevent trust escalation; if stripping fails, the partial install is cleaned up before propagating the error.
Symlink skip — symlinks in the source package are never copied, preventing symlink-based path traversal.
Path traversal defense — all install paths are canonicalized and verified to remain inside the managed root.

Installation

cargo add zeph-plugins

Enabled automatically when the zeph-plugins crate is a dependency of the root zeph binary.

Documentation

Full documentation: https://bug-ops.github.io/zeph/

License

MIT

zeph-plugins 0.20.1