The Traefik plugin architecture makes it easy for developers to create new plugins, modify existing ones, and share plugins with the Traefik community.
Traefik plugins are developed using the Go language, and a Traefik plugin is just a Go package.
Rather than being pre-compiled and linked, however, plugins are executed on the fly by Yaegi, a Go interpreter that's embedded in the Traefik application proxy.
This means plugins do not need to be compiled and no elaborate toolchain is required to get started. The process of developing Traefik plugins is comparable to that of web browser extensions.
To start developing your own plugin, view the required skeleton and the code, and explore further, please visit the middleware demo plugin and the provider demo plugin GitHub repositories.
Developing Traefik Plugins requires respecting a specific code architecture to allow the plugins to be used by Traefik as a middleware or a provider.
Depending on the plugin type, either middleware or provider, the required architecture is not the same.
You can find further information in both the middleware demo plugin and the provider demo plugin GitHub repositories.
As mentioned in the Plugin Installation section, Traefik admins can browse and add plugins to their instances from the Plugin Catalog.
From a technical perspective, the actual code for each plugin is stored and hosted in a public GitHub repository. Every 30 minutes, the Plugin Catalog polls GitHub to find repositories that match the criteria for a Traefik plugin and adds them.
To be recognized by the Plugin Catalog, your plugin’s catalog must meet a couple of criteria and contain a manifest that provides the Plugin Catalog with information about your plugin.
You can find further information in both the middleware demo plugin and the provider demo plugin GitHub repositories.
The Plugin Catalog gets your sources from a Go module proxy, so your plugins need to be versioned with a git tag.
The local mode described in the Plugin Installation section can be used to develop and test locally a plugin before hosting it on Github.
If something goes wrong with the integration of your plugin, the Plugin Catalog will create an issue inside your GitHub repository explaining the problem and will stop trying to add your plugin until you close the issue.
In order for your plugin to be successfully imported by the Plugin Catalog, consult this checklist:
traefik-plugin topic must be set on your repository..traefik.yml file at the root of your project describing your plugin, and it must have a valid testData property for testing purposes.go.mod file at the root of your project.