[feature request]datasette install plugins.json options

[HaveF]

Hi, simon ❤️

datasette plugins --all > plugins.json could generate all plugins info. On another machine, it would be great to install all plugins just by datasette install plugins.json

[simonw]

Neat idea! We already have this command:

datasette install -r requirements.txt

So maybe datasetet plugins --requirements could generate a requirements.txt file which could be used there.

[simonw]

diff --git a/datasette/cli.py b/datasette/cli.py
index 32266888..370b722c 100644
--- a/datasette/cli.py
+++ b/datasette/cli.py
@@ -223,15 +223,22 @@ pm.hook.publish_subcommand(publish=publish)
 
 @cli.command()
 @click.option("--all", help="Include built-in default plugins", is_flag=True)
+@click.option(
+    "--requirements", help="Output requirements.txt of installed plugins", is_flag=True
+)
 @click.option(
     "--plugins-dir",
     type=click.Path(exists=True, file_okay=False, dir_okay=True),
     help="Path to directory containing custom plugins",
 )
-def plugins(all, plugins_dir):
+def plugins(all, requirements, plugins_dir):
     """List currently installed plugins"""
     app = Datasette([], plugins_dir=plugins_dir)
-    click.echo(json.dumps(app._plugins(all=all), indent=4))
+    if requirements:
+        for plugin in app._plugins():
+            click.echo("{}=={}".format(plugin["name"], plugin["version"]))
+    else:
+        click.echo(json.dumps(app._plugins(all=all), indent=4))
 
 
 @cli.command()

Output:

% datasette plugins --requirements  
datasette-codespaces==0.1.1
datasette-graphql==2.2
datasette-json-html==1.0.1
datasette-pretty-json==0.2.2
datasette-x-forwarded-host==0.1

[HaveF]

Yes, using this approach(datasette install -r requirements.txt) will result in more consistency.

I'm curious about the results of the datasette plugins --all command. Where will we use the output of this command? Will it include configuration information for these plugins in the future? If so, will we need to consider the configuration of these plugins in addition to installing them on different computers?

[simonw]

Honestly the --all option isn't particularly useful - it's really more of a debugging tool for myself than something that I expect anyone else to use.

The purpose of datasette plugins generally is to help people confirm that plugins installed correctly. It's effectively the CLI alternative to hitting https://datasette.io/-/plugins

[simonw]

Plugin configuration itself currently lives in metadata.json which I don't like - that file was supposed to be for metadata about your databases, it's a bit of an accident that it grew configuration options as well.

I'm hoping to fix that for Datasette 1.0, but I'm still figuring out how to do that.

[simonw]

Problem - if there are plugins in the plugins directory it was returning this:

messages_output_renderer.py==None
my_plugin.py==None
my_plugin_2.py==None
register_output_renderer.py==None
sleep_sql_function.py==None
view_name.py==None

[simonw]

I'm going to have it only return plugins with a version other than None.

[simonw]

Documentation: https://docs.datasette.io/en/latest/plugins.html#seeing-what-plugins-are-installed

[HaveF]

It looks very nice now.
Finally, no more manual installation of plugins one by one. Thank you, Simon! ❤️