feat: plugin registry — unified view of installed plugins (closes #692)

[vivekchand]

Closes #692

What

New Plugins tab that shows all installed OpenClaw plugins in one unified view, categorized by type (connector, provider, tool, observability).

How

• New routes/plugins.py blueprint with GET /api/plugins endpoint
• Reads from openclaw.json plugins.entries
• Categorizes plugins by type using keyword matching
• Summary cards + filterable grid UI
• Shows enabled/disabled status and configuration state

Screenshots

New Plugins tab with:

• Summary cards (total, per-type counts)
• Filter buttons (All / Connectors / Providers / Tools / Observability / Disabled)
• Plugin cards with type badge, status indicator, config state

[vivekchand]

Test plan & review notes

What changed

• Adds routes/plugins.py (bp_plugins, GET /api/plugins) that reads openclaw.json → plugins.entries, classifies each plugin into connector/provider/tool/observability via static frozenset lookup, and returns a JSON list + summary; dashboard.py gains a new "Plugins" nav tab and a JS loadPlugins() / renderPluginsList() / filterPlugins() section that renders cards with per-type colour coding and enable/disable status.

Smoke commands

• make test or make test-api
• python3 dashboard.py --port 8900 then click the Plugins tab in the nav bar

What to look at visually

• Navigate to http://localhost:8900 → "Plugins" tab — verify summary cards show correct totals, filter buttons work, and plugin cards render with the right icon/colour
• curl -sS http://localhost:8900/api/plugins | python3 -m json.tool — expected shape: {"plugins": [{"name": "...", "type": "connector|provider|tool|observability", "enabled": true|false, "hasConfig": true|false}, ...], "summary": {"total": N, "enabled": N, "byType": {...}}}

Likely failure modes from the diff

• Unknown plugin names fall through to "tool" silently — any plugin not in the four frozensets (e.g. a community plugin or a newly added first-party one) will be mis-classified as "tool" with no warning. Consider adding an "unknown" type or logging unrecognised names.
• data.get("plugins") or {} hides a non-dict plugins key — if openclaw.json has "plugins": null or "plugins": [], the double-fallback silently returns no plugins instead of surfacing a parse error.
• filterPlugins reads event as an implicit global — the filterPlugins(type) JS function references event without it being passed as a parameter; this relies on the deprecated implicit window.event and will be undefined in Firefox and strict-mode environments, so the active-button highlight won't update. Fix: pass this from the onclick and toggle class on the passed element instead.
• Nav tab added twice in dashboard.py — the diff shows the <div class="nav-tab" onclick="switchTab('plugins')"> hunk applied to two separate template string blocks (around lines 3297 and 8651). Confirm at runtime that only one tab appears in the rendered HTML (double-registration would show duplicate tabs).

Issue link

• Closes #692 ✓ (already in title)

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[vivekchand]

Test plan & review notes

Repo: vivekchand/clawmetry

What changed

• New routes/plugins.py blueprint: GET /api/plugins reading openclaw.json plugin entries, categorized by type via keyword matching
• New "Plugins" tab with summary cards (total, per-type counts) + filterable grid (All / Connectors / Providers / Tools / Observability / Disabled)

Smoke commands

• python3 -c 'import ast; ast.parse(open("routes/plugins.py").read())' — syntax clean
• Without openclaw.json: curl -sS http://localhost:8900/api/plugins — should return {"plugins": []}, not 500
• With plugins installed: verify each plugin appears with correct type, enabled, and configured fields
• make test

What to look at visually

• http://localhost:8900 → "Plugins" tab → summary cards → filter buttons → grid of plugins with enabled/disabled status badges

Likely failure modes from the diff

• Keyword-based categorization: a plugin with a generic name (e.g. "my-tool") may land in the wrong bucket or fall through to a catch-all — confirm there's a default category
• Blueprint registration: routes/plugins.py must be imported and registered in dashboard.py

Issue link

• Closes #692

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[vivekchand]

Test plan & review notes

Repo: vivekchand/clawmetry

What changed

• Adds a new Plugins tab: routes/plugins.py exposes GET /api/plugins (reads openclaw.json plugins entries, classifies by type, returns summary counts); dashboard.py wires in the blueprint, nav tab, HTML panel, and ~70 lines of JS for rendering/filtering.

Heads-up — branch is DIRTY (mergeable_state: dirty). There are merge conflicts against main that need resolving before this can land.

Smoke commands

# Resolve conflicts first, then:
make lint
python3 dashboard.py --port 8900

What to look at visually

• http://localhost:8900 → click the new Plugins tab
• Verify summary cards render (Total / Connectors / Providers / Tools / Observability)
• Click each filter button and confirm the grid filters correctly
• Test with an openclaw.json that has no plugins key — should show "No plugins found" gracefully
• Test with an openclaw.json that has unknown plugin names — they will silently fall through to type: "tool" (see concern below)

Likely failure modes from the diff

• Unknown plugin names silently become "tool" — _classify() falls back to "tool" for anything not in the four hardcoded frozensets. A plugin like "custom-analytics-exporter" will appear under Tools rather than Observability. Consider logging a warning or adding an "other" bucket instead.
• filterPlugins reads implicit event global — function filterPlugins(type) calls event.target.classList.add('active') without event in the function signature. This works in most browsers but is non-standard; passing event explicitly from the onclick handlers (onclick="filterPlugins('all', event)") is safer.
• Nav tab duplicated in dashboard.py — the tab is added in two places (OSS template ~line 3297 and cloud template ~line 8651). This matches the existing pattern in the file, so it's expected — just worth a quick sanity check that both variants render the tab.
• openclaw.json path — relies on _d._get_openclaw_dir() from dashboard.py; if that helper is unavailable in a future refactor to helpers/, this will break silently (returns empty list, not an error).

Issue link

• Closes #692 ✓ (already linked in PR body)

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10 days old with no activity — the feature itself is additive (new tab, new route file, no mutations to existing endpoints) so there's low conflict risk beyond the dirty merge state. Worth a rebase to unblock.

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[vivekchand]

Test plan & review notes

Repo: vivekchand/clawmetry

What changed

• New routes/plugins.py blueprint (GET /api/plugins) reading openclaw.json plugins.entries; keyword-based type categorisation (connector/provider/tool/observability); new Plugins tab with summary cards, type-filter chips, and plugin cards showing enabled/disabled status and config state

Smoke commands

• make test
• python3 dashboard.py --port 8900
• curl -sS http://localhost:8900/api/plugins → expect list with type, enabled, config_state per plugin

What to look at visually

• http://localhost:8900 → Plugins tab → summary cards per type; filter chips should instantly narrow the grid without a network request

Likely failure modes from the diff

• openclaw.json absent or plugins.entries key missing → should return [] not 500
• Keyword-based type classification: plugins with ambiguous names may land in the wrong bucket — worth spot-checking any installed plugins with unusual names

Branch note

• This branch is currently behind main (dirty merge state). A git rebase origin/main would get CI running again.

Issue link

• Closes [P2] Plugin registry — unified view across connector/memory/tool/provider #692 ✓

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[vivekchand]

Auto-rebase pushed; CI now running. If still not green in 10min, may need manual attention.

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