Meshtastic Plugins

[benallfree]

This PR introduces the concept of Meshtastic Plugins: a clean, decentralized way to extend Meshtastic without touching the core firmware.

Currently, the plugin registry is running as part of the https://meshforge.org/ project at https://registry.meshforge.org but I am open to moving it to an official registry if you guys like this concept. The pip package is also currently named mesh-plugin-manager but can be renamed to meshtastic-plugin-manager if you take it on officially.

Key features

• Plugins live completely outside the core. They are installed as needed via a simple git clone into ./src/plugins/<plugin-slug>/.

• A new build helper script ./bin/mpm_pio.py (Meshtastic Plugin Manager) is invoked automatically via a tiny change in platformio.ini:

  • Scans all plugin directories
  • Automatically injects them into the build
  • Discovers any *.proto files in plugins and generates the corresponding protobuf code
  • Allows plugin authors to use protobuf messages for plugin-specific data without ever modifying the core meshtastic/protobufs files

• mpm_pio.py can also be used as a standalone CLI tool (python bin/mpm_pio.py list, etc.) to list discovered plugins or manually generate protobuf artifacts

• New lightweight dynamic module registration system in src/modules/ModuleRegistry.cpp

  • Plugin authors simply add MESHTASTIC_REGISTER_MODULE(MyModule) in their code
  • No more need to edit Modules.cpp in the core

Working examples

• ./src/plugins/sample-plugin – a fully functional demo plugin included in this repo
• Real-world plugins already migrated:
  • https://github.com/MeshEnvy/lobbs
  • https://github.com/MeshEnvy/lodb
• Community plugin index maintained as part of the MeshForge project:
  https://github.com/MeshEnvy/mesh-forge/blob/main/registry

Next step (suggestion)

If we like this direction, we could spin up an official registry.meshtastic.org that serves the latest registry.json. Plugin authors would contribute via PRs to a canonical registry repository, making discovery seamless for users.

Looking forward to your feedback! This should make third-party extensions much easier and keep the core lean. There may even be existing modules that could be migrated out of the core.

Note: CI will fail until the pip package is published