Custom CHT Plugins Squad

Product Squads
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As Gareth noted years ago the CHT has some significant limitations to its customization/functionality. Without a plugin architecture, developers seeking to make deep customizations to the CHT can only fork the repo and modify the core source code. This works, but is a lot of effort for the partners to maintain.

A better approach would be to support a plugin architecture with clearly defined features/interfaces. This would reduce the effort for creating custom experiences in the CHT and make it much easier/safer to maintain those experiences when upgrading to new versions of the CHT.

@Anro has recently re-started the conversation in a serious way both in this GitHub issue and by providing a working Proof of Concept PR! :rocket: Building on this momentum, I think the time has come to form a formal squad to pursue this feature! (See the docs for details about squads.)

The term “plugin” is very broad (see the examples in the link above). As a squad, we will have to narrow the scope down to a specific MVP that we can pursue first. This MVP should be as tightly scoped as possible, but should still address a real-world need. (Thanks again to @Anro for already providing some initial ideas/examples of both in his PR.)

Please reply here on this thread if you are interested in participating in the squad! :folded_hands:

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thanks @jkuester :+1: …

is there a slack channel for the squad that one can join ?

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Thanks @cliff for your interest. We will be creating the shared slack channel soon and share the link.

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hi @jkuester I am interested

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@jkuester @antony I’m interested.

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Interested @antony @jkuester

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I’m interested to participate in the squad.

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Apologies for late sign up. Interested.

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Awesome! Thank you to everyone for expressing interest! I am looking forward to some great collaboration here.

To get things moving, I am going to schedule a Kickoff Meeting. Please indicate your availability for any/all of these times next week! I will send an invite for the slot that works for the most folks. (The Tues/Thurs time slots do overlap with existing community meetings, so if you can make Friday work that would be best! :sweat_smile: But, if Tues/Thrus is better for more folks, then I would rather go for the overlap…)

  • Tues Nov 4th - 13:00 UTC
  • Thurs Nov 6th - 13:00 UTC
  • Fri Nov 7th - 13:00 UTC
0 voters

Additionally, I have started drafting a Requirements and Design doc. If you have some specific problems that you think could be addressed via a CHT plugin, please add it to this section. If you have any examples of plugins in other software frameworks that would be a useful reference, please add them to this section.

Thank you!

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Thanks for the responses to the poll! :+1: Lets lock in the kickoff meeting for this Friday, November 7th at 13:00 UTC.

Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/xsz-wuns-qhh
Or dial: <U+202A>(US) +1 601-840-3051<U+202C> PIN: <U+202A>407 228 208<U+202C>#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/xsz-wuns-qhh?pin=1642201141004

I have added the meeting to the CHT Community Calendar and sent email invites to everyone who responded to this thread ( @cliff @antony @Edwin @Kenyuri @femi_oni @binod @kanarelo @Anro ). Feel free to share the info with anyone else who might be interested in attending!

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Thank you everyone for an awesome kickoff on Friday! :rocket: Checkout some basic notes from the meeting here and also the design doc here.

We decided to pursue a plugin solution that would allow for adding custom UI content to the CHT webapp. Exactly what that means is still TBD.

Now I would like to schedule a recurring (weekly) squad meeting to help keep things coordinated and moving forwards. Let me know which times would typically work for you. :folded_hands:

  • Mon - 14:00 UTC
  • Mon - 15:00 UTC
  • Tues - 12:00 UTC
  • Thurs - 12:00 UTC
  • Thurs - 14:00 UTC
0 voters
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@jkuester Hey Josh, are we still having the CHT plugin meeting today at 12 pm UTC?

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Thank you everyone for your patience here as we get this all together! Based on the the responses to the poll, I have booked a recurring meeting for Thursdays at 14:00 UTC, starting next Thrusday, Nov 27th. Everyone on this thread should have gotten an email invite to the meeting (let me know if you did not). Also you can see the meeting on the CHT Community Calendar.

CHT Plugins Squad
Thursday, November 27 · 14:00 – 15:00 UTC
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/bzu-okav-mjd
Or dial: <U+202A>(US) +1 530-395-0819<U+202C> PIN: <U+202A>970 874 731<U+202C>#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/bzu-okav-mjd?pin=6724029925222

Looking forward to diving in deep on our ideas for how to implement custom UI plugins!

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