aliucord-plugins/guide/02-plugin-anatomy.md

Plugin anatomy

Every plugin is one class that extends Plugin and carries @AliucordPlugin.

Upstream: docs/documentation/plugin-dev/1_introduction.md
Template sample: docs/plugins-template/plugins/MyFirstKotlinPlugin/

Minimal Kotlin skeleton

package com.github.yourname

import android.content.Context
import com.aliucord.annotations.AliucordPlugin
import com.aliucord.entities.Plugin

@AliucordPlugin(requiresRestart = false)
@Suppress("unused")
class MyPlugin : Plugin() {
    override fun start(context: Context) {
        // register commands / patches here
    }

    override fun stop(context: Context) {
        patcher.unpatchAll()
        commands.unregisterAll()
    }
}

requiresRestart tells Aliucord whether installing or updating the plugin needs an app restart.

Lifecycle

Order is always:

load → start → stop → unload

Method	When	Typical use
load(Context)	Plugin is loaded	One-time init
start(Context)	Plugin is enabled	Register commands and patches
stop(Context)	Plugin is disabled	Unregister everything
unload(Context)	Plugin is unloaded	Tear down leftover state

If load or start throws, Aliucord logs it and unloads the plugin.

Built-in APIs on Plugin

Field	Role
commands	CommandsAPI — slash commands
patcher	PatcherAPI — method hooks
settings	SettingsAPI — persisted key/value store
settingsTab	Optional settings UI entry on the plugin card

Set settingsTab in an init block / constructor if you need a settings screen. See Settings.

Monorepo layout

One GitHub repo usually holds many plugins. Each plugin is its own Gradle subproject:

plugins/
  MyPlugin/
    build.gradle.kts
    src/main/kotlin/.../MyPlugin.kt
  AnotherPlugin/
    ...

That matches how almost every repo under examples/ is structured.

Cleanup habit

In stop, always undo what start did:

override fun stop(context: Context) {
    patcher.unpatchAll()
    commands.unregisterAll()
}

Leaving patches live after disable is a common crash source. Real plugins like Juby210's NoAutoReplyMention do exactly this pattern: patch in start, unpatchAll in stop.

Next: Commands