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+Authoring a Plugin
+====
+
+NixOps plugins extend NixOps core to support additional hosting
+providers and resource types.
+
+Some example plugins include:
+
+- https://github.com/NixOS/nixops-aws
+- https://github.com/NixOS/nixops-hetzner
+- https://github.com/nix-community/nixops-vbox
+- https://github.com/nix-community/nixops-libvirtd
+- https://github.com/nix-community/nixops-datadog
+
+This guide is light on the details, and intends to describe just the
+supported hooks and integration process.
+
+Packaging with Poetry and poetry2nix
+====
+
+NixOps and its plugins are packaged as standard Python applications.
+Most packages will use `Poetry <https://python-poetry.org>`_ and
+`poetry2nix <https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix>`_ for
+packaging with Nix.
+
+Note: NixOps is formatted with ``black`` and strictly typechecked with
+``mypy``. Your project should follow these guidelines as well, and use
+a mypy configuration at least as strict as the NixOps mypy
+configuration.
+
+First, create a ``pyproject.toml`` (see `PEP-0517
+<https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0517/>`_ to describe your
+project. This is intsead of a ``setup.py``, and using both may cause
+confusing build errors. Only use a ``pyproject.toml``::
+
+  [tool.poetry]
+  name = "nixops_neatcloud"
+  version = "1.0"
+  description = "NixOps plugin for NeatCloud"
+  authors = ["Your Name <your.name@example.com>"]
+  license = "MIT"
+  include = [ "nixops_neatcloud/nix/*.nix" ]
+
+  [tool.poetry.dependencies]
+  python = "^3.7"
+  nixops = {git = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixops.git", rev = "master"}
+
+  [tool.poetry.plugins."nixops"]
+  neatcloud = "nixops_neatcloud.plugin"
+
+  [build-system]
+  requires = ["poetry>=0.12"]
+  build-backend = "poetry.masonry.api"
+
+Now create your first ``poetry.lock`` file with ``poetry lock``::
+
+  nixops_neatcloud$ nix-shell -p poetry
+  [nix-shell:nixops_neatcloud]$ poetry lock
+  Creating virtualenv nixops_neatcloud-FrXThxiS-py3.7 in ~/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs
+  Updating dependencies
+  Resolving dependencies... (2.1s)
+
+  Writing lock file
+
+Exit the Nix shell, and create the supporting Nix files.
+
+Create a ``default.nix``::
+
+  { pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
+  let
+    overrides = import ./overrides.nix { inherit pkgs; };
+  in pkgs.poetry2nix.mkPoetryApplication {
+    projectDir = ./.;
+    overrides = pkgs.poetry2nix.overrides.withDefaults overrides;
+  }
+
+And a minimal ``overrides.nix``::
+
+  { pkgs }:
+
+  self: super: {
+    nixops = super.nixops.overridePythonAttrs({ nativeBuildInputs ? [], ... }: {
+      format = "pyproject";
+      nativeBuildInputs = nativeBuildInputs ++ [ self.poetry ];
+    });
+  }
+
+and finally, a ``shell.nix``::
+
+  { pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
+  let
+    overrides = import ./overrides.nix { inherit pkgs; };
+  in pkgs.mkShell {
+    buildInputs = [
+      (pkgs.poetry2nix.mkPoetryEnv {
+        projectDir = ./.;
+        overrides = pkgs.poetry2nix.overrides.withDefaults overrides;
+      })
+      pkgs.poetry
+    ];
+  }
+
+Now you can enter a Nix and Poetry shell to develop on your plugin::
+
+  nixops_neatcloud$ nix-shell
+  [nix-shell:nixops_neatcloud]$ poetry install
+  [nix-shell:nixops_neatcloud]$ poetry shell
+
+Note: ``install`` is making a virtual environment, and does not
+install anything in the traditional sense.
+
+Create an empty file at ``nixops_neatcloud/plugin.py``, and then
+you'll be able to list plugins and see your plugin:
+
+Now you can list plugins and see your plugin is installed::
+
+  (nixops_neatcloud-FrXThxiS-py3.7)
+  nixops_neatcloud$ nixops list-plugins
+  +-------------------+
+  | Installed Plugins |
+  +-------------------+
+  |     neatcloud     |
+  +-------------------+
+
+At this point, you can develop your plugin from within this shell,
+running ``nixops`` and ``mypy nixops_neatcloud``./
+
+Plug-in Loading
+=====
+
+NixOps uses `Pluggy <https://pluggy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>`_ to
+discover and load plugins. The glue which hooks things together is in
+``pyproject.toml``::
+
+  [tool.poetry.plugins."nixops"]
+  neatcloud = "nixops_neatcloud.plugin"
+
+NixOps implements a handful of hooks which your plugin can integrate
+with. See ``nixops/plugins/hookspec.py`` for a complete list.
+
+Developing NixOps and a plugin at the same time
+====
+
+In this case you want a mutable copy of NixOps and your plugin. Since
+we are developing the plugin like any other Python program, we can
+specify a relative path to NixOps's source in the pyproject.toml::
+
+  nixops = { path = "../nixops" }
+
+Then run `poetry lock; poetry install; poetry shell` like normal.
+
+Troubleshooting
+====
+
+If you run in to trouble, you might try deleting some things::
+
+  $ rm -rf nixops_neatcloud.egg-info pip-wheel-metadata/
+
+Building a dependency fails
+----
+
+First, run your ``nix-shell`` or ``nix-build`` with ``--keep-going``
+and then again with ``--jobs 1`` to isolate the cause. The first run
+will build everything it can complete, and the second one will build
+only one derivation and then fail::
+
+  nixops_neatcloud$ nix-shell -j1 --keep-going
+  these derivations will be built:
+    /nix/store/3s2a0hky73b24m4yppd7581c9w2clpnb-python3.7-nixops-1.8.0.drv
+    /nix/store/bv6gwayic2xxx3pd489d4gbs03kafxsd-python3-3.7.6-env.drv
+  building '/nix/store/3s2a0hky73b24m4yppd7581c9w2clpnb-python3.7-nixops-1.8.0.drv'...
+  [...]
+  Traceback (most recent call last):
+    File "nix_run_setup", line 8, in <module>
+      exec(compile(getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__).read().replace('\\r\\n', '\\n'), __file__, 'exec'))
+    File "/nix/store/n8nviwmllwqv0fjsar8v8k8gjap1vhcw-python3-3.7.6/lib/python3.7/tokenize.py", line 447, in open
+      buffer = _builtin_open(filename, 'rb')
+  FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'setup.py'
+  builder for '/nix/store/3s2a0hky73b24m4yppd7581c9w2clpnb-python3.7-nixops-1.8.0.drv' failed with exit code 1
+  cannot build derivation '/nix/store/bv6gwayic2xxx3pd489d4gbs03kafxsd-python3-3.7.6-env.drv': 1 dependencies couldn't be built
+  error: build of '/nix/store/bv6gwayic2xxx3pd489d4gbs03kafxsd-python3-3.7.6-env.drv' failed
+
+If a dependency is missing, add the dependency to your
+``pyproject.toml``, and add an override like the Toml example for Zipp.
+
+Zipp can't find toml
+----
+
+Add zipp to your ``overrides.nix``, providing toml explicitly::
+
+  { pkgs }:
+
+  self: super: {
+    zipp = super.zipp.overridePythonAttrs({ propagatedBuildInputs ? [], ... } : {
+      propagatedBuildInputs = propagatedBuildInputs ++ [
+        self.toml
+      ];
+    });
+  }
+
+FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'setup.py'
+----
+
+This dependency needs to be built in the ``pyproject`` format, which
+means it will also need poetry as a dependency. Add this to your
+``overrides.nix``::
+
+    package-name = super.package-name.overridePythonAttrs({ nativeBuildInputs ? [], ... }: {
+      format = "pyproject";
+      nativeBuildInputs = nativeBuildInputs ++ [ self.poetry ];
+    });