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ArchiveBox-compatible plugin suite (hooks and config schemas).

This package contains standalone plugin hook scripts and config schemas. A hook can be run directly as a CLI; runners such as abx-dl and archivebox add orchestration, environment setup, and cache projection around the same scripts.

Usage

Tools like abx-dl and ArchiveBox can discover plugins from this package without symlinks or environment-variable tricks.

Plugin Contract

Directory layout

Each plugin lives under plugins/<name>/ and may include:

• config.json config schema
• optional generic catalog metadata in config.json: category, display_order, hidden, and x-auto-run (set false for hooks that require explicit host selection)
• config.json > required_binaries binary dependency declarations (optional)
• on_CrawlSetup__... crawl setup hook scripts (optional) - shared setup/process startup, emit no stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__... per-snapshot hooks - emit ArchiveResult and may also emit Snapshot / Tag

Hooks run with:

• SNAP_DIR = base snapshot directory (default: .)
• CRAWL_DIR = base crawl directory (default: .)
• Snapshot hook output = SNAP_DIR/<plugin>/...
• Crawl hook output = CRAWL_DIR/<plugin>/...
• Other plugin outputs can be read via ../<other-plugin>/... from your own output dir

Key environment variables

• SNAP_DIR - base snapshot directory (default: .)
• CRAWL_DIR - base crawl directory (default: .)
• ABXPKG_LIB_DIR - binaries/tools root (default: ~/.config/abx/lib)
• PERSONAS_DIR - persona profiles root (default: ~/.config/abx/personas)
• ACTIVE_PERSONA - persona name (default: Default)

Binary dependency contract (concise)

Lifecycle:

1. config.json > required_binaries declares plugin dependencies.
2. Hook config helpers hydrate *_BINARY values from env, known local paths, and abxpkg provider state so hooks can run as standalone CLIs.
3. Runners may perform an install preflight from the same declarations. abx-dl and ArchiveBox use abxpkg services/cache backends to prepare env/DB state, but hooks must not depend on those services being active.

config.json declaration:

[
  {
    "name": "{YTDLP_BINARY}",
    "binproviders": "env,uv,brew,apt",
    "min_version": null,
    "overrides": {
      "uv": {
        "install_args": ["yt-dlp[default]"]
      }
    }
  }
]

Runners may project resolved binary metadata internally as BinaryEvent records shaped like:

{"type":"Binary","name":"yt-dlp","abspath":"/abs/path","version":"2025.01.01","sha256":"<optional>","binprovider":"pip","machine_id":"<recommended>","binary_id":"<recommended>"}

Notes:

• Install resolution is optional runtime preflight work driven directly from config.json > required_binaries.
• Binary provider plugins are no longer part of this package; binary provider behavior lives in abxpkg.
• abxpkg owns the provider cache under ABXPKG_LIB_DIR; ArchiveBox may additionally project resolved binary events into DB machine_binary rows. Plugins and abx-dl stay unaware of both persistence layers.

State/OS:

• working dir: CRAWL_DIR/<plugin>/
• durable install root: ABXPKG_LIB_DIR (e.g. npm prefix, pip venv, puppeteer cache)
• built-in providers include apt (Debian/Ubuntu), brew (macOS/Linux), and language/runtime-specific installers; many hooks currently assume POSIX paths

Hook family contract

Lifecycle:

• optional binary preflight can run before crawl setup, but hook scripts also resolve declared binaries through shared config helpers when run directly
• on_CrawlSetup__* runs before snapshot extraction; background setup hooks use their first stdout line as readiness and emit no stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__* runs once per snapshot; background hooks use their first stdout line as readiness and then may emit ArchiveResult, Snapshot, and Tag records only

State:

• output cwd is usually SNAP_DIR/<plugin>/
• hooks may read sibling outputs via ../<plugin>/...

Output records:

• on_Snapshot__* should finish with an ArchiveResult record:

{"type":"ArchiveResult","status":"succeeded|noresults|skipped|failed","output_str":"path-or-message"}

• Snapshot and Tag records may appear before the final ArchiveResult

Semantics:

• stdout: for background hooks, the first line is the readiness boundary; hook JSONL records may follow
• stderr: diagnostics/logging
• exit 0: succeeded, noresults, or skipped
• exit non-zero: failed

Rules:

• on_CrawlSetup__* hooks should communicate only through side effects such as files, sockets, long-lived processes, or the background readiness stdout line, not stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__* hooks should not emit Machine, Process, or Binary records

Base plugin utilities

The base/ plugin provides shared Python and JS helpers that all other plugins import:

Python (base/utils.py):

from abx_plugins.plugins.base.utils import (
    load_config,
    emit_archive_result_record,
    emit_snapshot_record,
)

• load_config() — load plugin config.json with env var + alias + fallback resolution, merged with shared base/common runtime vars like SNAP_DIR, CRAWL_DIR, ABXPKG_LIB_DIR, PERSONAS_DIR, EXTRA_CONTEXT, TIMEOUT, and USER_AGENT
• emit_archive_result_record(status, output_str) — print {"type":"ArchiveResult",...} JSONL to stdout
• emit_snapshot_record(record) — emit {"type":"Snapshot",...} JSONL to stdout
• write_text_atomic(path, content) — write file atomically (temp + rename)
• find_html_source(snap_dir, ...) — locate HTML from sibling plugins
• has_staticfile_output(snap_dir, path) — check if a sibling plugin produced a file
• enforce_lib_permissions() — lock down ABXPKG_LIB_DIR so snapshot hooks can read/execute but not write

JS (base/utils.js):

const { loadConfig, getEnv, getEnvBool, getEnvInt, getEnvArray, emitArchiveResultRecord, emitSnapshotRecord } = require('../base/utils.js');

• loadConfig() — load plugin config.json merged with shared base/common runtime vars using env var + alias + fallback resolution
• emitArchiveResultRecord(status, outputStr) — emit ArchiveResult JSONL to stdout
• emitSnapshotRecord(record) — emit Snapshot JSONL to stdout

Test helpers (base/test_utils.py):

from abx_plugins.plugins.base.testing import (
    get_hook_script,
    parse_jsonl_output,
    run_hook,
)

• parse_jsonl_output(stdout) — extract first matching JSONL record from hook stdout
• run_hook(hook_script, url, snapshot_id=None) — run a hook subprocess with standard args, optionally relying on EXTRA_CONTEXT for snapshot metadata
• get_hook_script(plugin_dir, pattern) — find hook script by glob pattern

Note: Use sys.path.append() (not insert(0, ...)) because the ssl/ plugin directory would shadow Python's stdlib ssl module.

Rules

• all plugins should:
  • overwrite existing files cleanly if re-run in the same dir, do not skip if files are already present (do not delete and then download, because if a process fails we want to leave previous output intact).
  • the exception to always overwriting files is: chrome.pid. target_id.txt, navigation.json, etc. chrome state which gets reused if it's not stale. we should detect if any of it is stale during chrome launch and tab creation, and clear all of it together if it is stale to prevent subtle drift errors / reuse of stale values.
  • status succeeded if they ran and produced output
  • status noresults if they ran successfully but produced no meaningful output (e.g. git on a non-github url, ytdlp on a site with no media, paperdl on a site with no pdfs, etc.)
  • status skipped if only if config caused them not to run (e.g. YTDLP_ENABLED=False)
  • status failed if any hard dependencies are missing/invalid (e.g. chrome) or if the process exited non-0 / raised an exception
  • return a short, meaningful output_str e.g. the page title, mimetype, return status code, or the relative path of the primary output file produced like output.pdf or 0 modals closed or The Page Title Verbatim or favicon.io or Not a git URL
  • define execution order solely using lexicographic sort order of hook filenames
  • use bg hooks for either short-lived tasks that can run in parallel, or long-lived tasks that run for the whole duration of the snapshot and get killed for cleanup/final output at the end
  • treat bg vs fg as the only programmatic hook distinction; words like daemon and finite in hook filenames are human hints only
  • bg hooks must emit their first stdout line only after they are ready for the next hook to launch; move non-ready startup diagnostics to stderr
  • bg hooks that depend on other bg hook outputs must implement their own waiters internally + check that inputs are truly ready and not just that the files are present, because they may be spawned in parallel/before the earlier one's outputs are actually ready and race. e.g. html/artifact generation should usually be fg so that later bg parsing hooks can safely depend on it being finished and not just part of the file being present
  • use rich_click for cli arg parsing with a uv file header when hooks are written in python. do not depend on archivebox or django, try to only depend on chrome or the output files of other plugins instead of importing code from them. the one exception is to always use chrome_utils.js as the interface for anything involving chrome.

Hook JSONL interface

Hooks emit plain JSONL records to stdout. The current hook families and records are:

• on_CrawlSetup__* → background readiness line only, no stdout JSONL records
• on_Snapshot__* → background readiness line when applicable, then ArchiveResult, Snapshot, Tag

abx-dl and ArchiveBox map those records into their own internal event systems. Binary request events are produced from plugin config and handled by abxpkg, not by plugin hook scripts. Plugins do not need to know or emit any bus envelope format.