Plugin Types

Porter is extensible and supports a couple extension points where you can alter its default behavior. Plugins implement a well-defined interface and can be switched by editing Porter’s configuration file.

Storage

Storage plugins let you persist files created by Porter to an alternative location, instead of to the local filesystem under ~/.porter. By default, credential and parameter sets are saved to the /credentials and /parameters directories under ~/.porter. Installation records of a bundle being executed, including claim receipts, action results and outputs, are saved to the /claims, /results and /outputs directories under ~/.porter.

A storage plugin can implement the plugins.StorageProtocol interface and change where those files are saved. For example, the Azure plugin saves them to Azure Blob Storage.

Secrets

Secrets plugins make it easier to securely store and share secret values and then inject them into a bundle. Currently secrets can only be injected as credentials but we are working on injecting them into parameters too. By default, credentials are resolved against the local host: environment variables, files, commands and hard-coded values.

A secrets plugin can implement the secrets.Store interface and resolve credentials from remote and ideally more secure locations. For example, the Azure plugin resolves secrets from Azure Key Vault.