Plugin stores

A plugin store is a small server that one person runs for the people they invite. Everyone who joins can install the store’s plugins from inside anistream and hears about new versions when anistream starts. anistream ships no store and lists none. You join one through an invite link.

Joining a store

The store’s owner sends you an invite link. In anistream, open Providers and press Enter to open plugin stores, choose join a store, and paste the link. anistream checks the link against the store before using it, shows the store’s name and key, and asks you to confirm. The confirmation also shows the name the store’s owner will see for this device, which starts as the kind of device it is, such as “Computer” or “iPhone”. Type over it before you join to change it.

The store’s page lists its plugins. Enter on one shows what it may contact before anything is installed. Installed plugins run as part of the "plugins" entry in providers.order, which is there by default; K on the Providers screen moves one ahead of the others.

An invite link works once and expires after seven days. To use the same store on another computer, choose link another device on the store’s page for a new link of your own.

Updates

When a store has a newer version of a plugin you installed, anistream says so once when it starts. Nothing is installed until you choose update on the store’s page, and an update that wants to contact a host the old version could not reach says which before you accept it.

Leaving a store

Choose leave this store on the store’s page to give up your access. Plugins you installed from it stay on your machine and stop updating. To remove one, choose it on the store’s page and pick remove before you leave.

Security

Only people with an invite can list or download a store’s plugins. Everyone who joins does get the plugins themselves, and can read them like any other file on their machine.

Members are protected by the sandbox and by the store’s signature. A plugin can only reach the hosts it declares, and a plugin list or download that was not signed by the key in your invite is refused, as is a list older than one you have already seen. The key lives with the store, so the signature guards against tampering on the way to you and against another server answering at the store’s address. It does not guard against someone who controls the store itself.

Removing someone stops their updates at once; plugins they already installed stay on their machine.

Running a store

Anyone can run one, on their own computer or on a hosting platform, and most platforms’ free or smallest plans are enough for a group of friends. Running a store covers deploying one, claiming it, and managing it from anistream or its admin page.

The protocol is described in full in docs/plugin-stores.md, for anyone who wants to write a different server.