---
id: plugin-ecosystem/no-install-from-git-url
title: "No install-from-git-URL"
theme: plugin-ecosystem
status: done
created: 2026-08-18
date_source: section
order: 3
---

**No install-from-git-URL.** The catalogue is the only route for a remote plugin, so the
"build your own, give it to a friend" path has no affordance. Small, and needed before the
unofficial channel is real.

**Done 2026-08-28.** `POST /api/plugins/install-from-url`, owner-only, taking `{ url }` and optionally
`{ appName }`.

Smaller than this note assumed: `fetchPlugin` already cloned, validated the URL, refused to overwrite an
existing directory, checked for a `manifest.ts` and cleaned up a failed clone. One line tied it to the
catalogue — where the URL came from. So the change is a source parameter threaded through, plus a route.

The name comes from the repository, because `appName` IS the directory name and is never declared in a
manifest. That is checked against `^[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$` BEFORE cloning: it becomes the route
segment, the table prefix and the pm2 process name, and a half-clone under an unusable name reads as a
broken plugin rather than an absent one.

The first real user is `fofos/fofos-admin` — one website's admin panel, which should never be in a
registry. Verified end to end against it and then purged, since this is not that website's machine.