Plugin System Overview

EmDash’s plugin system lets you extend the CMS without modifying core code. Plugins can hook into content lifecycle events, store their own data, expose settings to administrators, and add custom UI to the admin panel.

Design Philosophy

EmDash plugins are configuration transformers, not separate applications. They run in the same process as your Astro site and interact through well-defined interfaces.

Key principles:

• Declarative — Hooks, storage, and routes are declared at definition time, not registered dynamically
• Type-safe — Full TypeScript support with typed context objects
• Sandboxing-ready — APIs designed for isolated execution on Cloudflare Workers
• Capability-based — Plugins declare what they need; the runtime enforces access

Note

EmDash plugins are not Astro integrations. They’re passed to the EmDash integration in your Astro config. A plugin that needs both can ship as an Astro integration that also registers EmDash hooks.

What Plugins Can Do

Hook into events

Run code before or after content saves, media uploads, and plugin lifecycle events.

Store data

Persist plugin-specific data in indexed collections without writing database migrations.

Expose settings

Declare a settings schema and get an auto-generated admin UI for configuration.

Add admin pages

Create custom admin pages and dashboard widgets with React components.

Create API routes

Expose endpoints for your plugin’s admin UI or external integrations.

Make HTTP requests

Call external APIs with declared host restrictions for security.

Plugin Architecture

Every plugin is created with definePlugin():

import { definePlugin } from "emdash";

export default definePlugin({
  id: "my-plugin",
  version: "1.0.0",

  // What APIs the plugin needs access to
  capabilities: ["read:content", "network:fetch"],

  // Hosts the plugin can make HTTP requests to
  allowedHosts: ["api.example.com"],

  // Persistent storage collections
  storage: {
    entries: {
      indexes: ["userId", "createdAt"],
    },
  },

  // Event handlers
  hooks: {
    "content:afterSave": async (event, ctx) => {
      ctx.log.info("Content saved", { id: event.content.id });
    },
  },

  // REST API endpoints
  routes: {
    status: {
      handler: async (ctx) => ({ ok: true }),
    },
  },

  // Admin UI configuration
  admin: {
    settingsSchema: {
      apiKey: { type: "secret", label: "API Key" },
    },
    pages: [{ path: "/dashboard", label: "Dashboard" }],
    widgets: [{ id: "status", size: "half" }],
  },
});

Plugin Context

Every hook and route handler receives a PluginContext object with access to:

Property	Description	Availability
ctx.storage	Plugin’s document collections	Always (if declared)
ctx.kv	Key-value store for settings and state	Always
ctx.content	Read/write site content	With read:content or write:content
ctx.media	Read/write media files	With read:media or write:media
ctx.http	HTTP client for external requests	With network:fetch
ctx.log	Structured logger	Always
ctx.plugin	Plugin metadata (id, version)	Always

The context shape is identical across all hooks and routes. Capability-gated properties are only present when the plugin declares the required capability.

Capabilities

Capabilities determine what APIs are available in the plugin context:

Capability	Grants Access To
read:content	ctx.content.get(), ctx.content.list()
write:content	ctx.content.create(), ctx.content.update(), ctx.content.delete()
read:media	ctx.media.get(), ctx.media.list()
write:media	ctx.media.getUploadUrl(), ctx.media.delete()
network:fetch	ctx.http.fetch()

Tip

write:content implies read:content. Same for media. Declare only what you need.

Registration

Register plugins in your Astro configuration:

astro.config.mjs

import { defineConfig } from "astro/config";
import { emdash } from "emdash/astro";
import seoPlugin from "@emdash-cms/plugin-seo";
import auditLogPlugin from "@emdash-cms/plugin-audit-log";

export default defineConfig({
  integrations: [
    emdash({
      plugins: [seoPlugin({ generateSitemap: true }), auditLogPlugin({ retentionDays: 90 })],
    }),
  ],
});

Plugins are resolved at build time. Order matters for hooks with the same priority—earlier plugins in the array run first.

Execution Modes

EmDash supports two plugin execution modes:

Mode	Description	Platform
Trusted	Plugins run in-process with full access	Any
Sandboxed	Plugins run in isolated V8 workers	Cloudflare only

In trusted mode (the default), capabilities are documentation—plugins can access anything. In sandboxed mode, capabilities are enforced at the runtime level.

Note

Sandboxed execution requires Cloudflare Workers with Dynamic Worker Loader. Other platforms use trusted mode only. See Plugin Sandbox for a full comparison of the security guarantees on each platform.

Next Steps

Create a Plugin

Build your first plugin with storage, hooks, and admin UI.

Available Hooks

Browse all hooks for content, media, and plugin lifecycle.

Plugin Storage

Learn about storage and how to query plugin data.

Admin UI

Add admin pages and dashboard widgets.

Sandbox Security

Understand sandbox isolation across Cloudflare and Node.js deployments.