Plugins
A plugin is a separate program — running on the same computer, somewhere else on your home network, or out on the internet — that Loombre talks to over the web, the same way your browser talks to a website. Loombre never downloads, installs, or runs a plugin's code itself: it only ever sends the plugin a request and reads back its answer. If a plugin's program disappears entirely, nothing about Loombre itself breaks — the things that plugin was doing (looking up show details, say) simply stop happening.
Loombre calls each specific thing a plugin can do a capability — for example, looking up information about your movies and shows is one capability; sending a feed of what's happening on your server somewhere else is another. A single plugin can offer more than one capability, and you choose which of them to actually turn on when you register it.
Two kinds of capability exist today:
- Metadata provider — looks up titles, descriptions, and artwork for your media, alongside (or instead of) Loombre's built-in sources.
- Activity feed subscriber — receives a feed of things happening on your server (a show being added, someone starting to watch something), so it can forward that somewhere else — a chat notification, a scrobbling service, and so on.
Registering a plugin
From the Plugins screen, choose Register a plugin and enter its web address. Nothing is saved yet — Loombre first reads what the plugin declares about itself and shows you a confirmation screen before anything is registered.
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If the plugin runs somewhere on your own home network rather than the open internet, there's an optional field for that too: list its exact address (for example 192.168.1.50 or plugin-box.local). Loombre refuses to reach private network addresses on a plugin's behalf unless you allow them here, by their exact name — there's no partial matching, so a typo simply means the address isn't allowed.
The confirmation screen
Next, Loombre shows every capability this plugin has declared, with a plain-language line explaining what it means for your library and your privacy (see What each capability can see below) — turn off anything you don't want to allow before continuing. If the plugin asks to receive an activity feed, the next step lets you choose exactly which kinds of activity it actually gets (see Choosing what a plugin can see).
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If the plugin needs any configuration — an address to send notifications to, a service key, and so on — you'll fill that in next (see Configuration and secrets).
The signing secret
Once you register, Loombre shows a one-time secret value — used so an activity feed subscriber can verify that a delivery genuinely came from your Loombre server and hasn't been tampered with in transit. This value is shown exactly once, right here. Copy it now if the plugin needs it; Loombre never displays it again afterward (you can always mint a fresh one later — see Rotating the signing secret).
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Finally, Loombre runs a quick check to confirm the plugin is actually reachable and working. If that check fails, you're offered a choice: keep the plugin registered and try again later, or remove it now. If it succeeds, registration is done.
What each capability can see
Every capability card on the confirmation screen (and on a plugin's own page afterward) carries an exact, plain-language statement of what that plugin can see and do — reproduced here verbatim:
Metadata provider, on a general library:
Can look up titles, years, and other identifying details for [the kinds of media it declares] in any library it's attached to, and sends back matched descriptions and artwork for them. It never sees anything about who's watching or listening. It can be used on any library, restricted or not.
Metadata provider, restricted to your restricted-content libraries:
Can look up titles, years, and other identifying details for [the kinds of media it declares] in any library it's attached to, and sends back matched descriptions and artwork for them. It never sees anything about who's watching or listening. It only ever sees restricted libraries — never a general one.
Activity feed subscriber, on general activity:
Receives the activity feed events you choose to send it — nothing more than what you grant below. By default, who did something is shown as an anonymous id, not a real account. It never receives activity involving restricted content.
Activity feed subscriber, scoped to restricted-content activity:
Receives the activity feed events you choose to send it — nothing more than what you grant below. By default, who did something is shown as an anonymous id, not a real account. It only ever receives activity involving restricted content if you grant that on purpose.
A plugin's restricted-or-general scope is fixed by the plugin itself (it's part of what it declares) — you can't mix the two for one capability. A general-scoped plugin is simply never offered restricted-library data or restricted-content activity through any capability, full stop.
Who gets credited
By default, when Loombre tells an activity feed subscriber that someone did something, it uses an anonymous id rather than a real account name — the same real account always gets the same anonymous id for that one plugin, but that id can't be traced back to a real account, and a different plugin sees a completely different anonymous id for the very same account. This is on by default for every activity feed subscriber.
Each subscriber's own page has a toggle to turn this off and send real account ids instead, if you have a specific reason to (a scrobbling service that needs to tell users apart, for example). Turning protection back on needs no confirmation; turning it off does, because it's the direction that exposes more:
Send real account ids to "plugin name" instead of anonymous ones? This takes effect for everything delivered from now on.
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Configuration and secrets
If a plugin needs any settings — an address, a mode, a key — Loombre builds the form for it automatically from what the plugin itself declares; there's never a hand-built form to keep in sync. Ordinary fields (addresses, numbers, on/off switches) work exactly like any other settings field.
Fields the plugin marks as sensitive (an access key, for instance) are handled differently: they're write-only. You can type a value in, but once it's saved, Loombre never shows it back to you again — not on this screen, not anywhere else. The stored value lives in your operating system's own secure credential store, not in Loombre's regular settings. Editing a plugin's configuration later, an empty sensitive field simply means "leave whatever's already stored alone" — you only need to type a new value if you're actually changing it.
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Choosing what a plugin can see
An activity feed subscriber's manifest asks for certain kinds of activity — but asking isn't the same as receiving. The event-grant editor lists everything the plugin has requested, unchecked by default; only the ones you explicitly check are ever sent to it. You can change your mind at any time from the plugin's own page — anything you uncheck simply stops being sent from that point on.
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Delivery status
An activity feed subscriber's own page shows whether deliveries are actually getting through: how many events it's received and when the last one landed, or a plain notice — "Hasn't delivered anything yet." — if nothing has gone out yet. If a plugin has been unreachable for several attempts in a row, a warning names the streak and when Loombre last tried. Loombre keeps a short backlog of activity for a subscriber that's temporarily unreachable and delivers it once the plugin comes back — but if a plugin is unreachable for longer than that backlog covers, the oldest part of it is given up on rather than kept forever, and the same panel tells you so rather than pretending nothing was missed.
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Provider chains per library
Each library has an ordered list of metadata sources it tries, one after another, until one of them has a match — this is the provider chain. Every library starts out using Loombre's own built-in default order for its kind of media (movies, TV, or music); you don't have to do anything for that to work.
Open a library's provider chain from the Libraries screen to see that default order, and choose Customize this chain if you want to change it just for that one library — reorder entries by dragging (or with the up/down buttons, if you'd rather), remove one, or add another. You can add any of Loombre's built-in sources, plus any registered metadata-provider plugin that's eligible for this library specifically.
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A plugin only ever shows up as eligible for libraries that match its own restricted-or-general scope exactly — a plugin scoped to restricted libraries never appears as a choice for a general one, and vice versa, for the same reason described above. If a plugin you expected to see isn't in the list, that's why. Nothing is saved until you choose Save; clearing every entry reverts the library back to Loombre's built-in default.
Health, and being turned off automatically
Loombre confirms a plugin is actually working when you register it, when it's re-approved, and periodically in the background afterward — every few minutes for as long as a plugin stays turned on — re-reading what it declares about itself and, for a metadata provider, sending it a harmless test lookup. You'll see the outcome reflected as a status next to the plugin's name: enabled and healthy, enabled but currently unhealthy, or disabled, with a reason. This background check means a plugin that quietly stops working shows up as unhealthy on its own, without you needing to open its page and ask.
Beyond those checks, ordinary use is what Loombre actually watches too: every real lookup a metadata provider is asked to do, and every real delivery sent to an activity feed subscriber, counts toward the same failure tally — an error response counts as a failure exactly like a plugin that doesn't answer at all. If a plugin fails enough times in a row this way — five consecutive failures — Loombre turns it off automatically rather than letting it keep holding things up, and shows it as Disabled (too many failures). No plugin, however broken or slow, can stall a library scan, a page load, or anything else waiting on it; Loombre simply stops trying and moves on.
To bring a disabled-by-failure plugin back, open its page and choose Enable — this also resets its failure count, so it gets a fresh run at proving it's working again.
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Plugins on your home network
By default, Loombre refuses to send plugin traffic to an address on your own local network or on the server's own machine — the same protection that keeps a plugin from being tricked into probing your router, your other home devices, or Loombre's own internals under the guise of "just talking to a plugin." This is deliberate and applies even though the plugin itself is something you chose to register.
If you're actually running a plugin on your home network on purpose — a small box in a closet, a program on the same machine as Loombre, and so on — list its exact address in the Local network addresses to allow field when you register it. Only addresses listed there, matched exactly, are ever allowed; there's no wildcard or range shorthand, so each address you want to use has to be listed by name. This list is set at registration time and carried forward automatically if the plugin is later refreshed or re-approved.
Rotating the signing secret
If you ever suspect a plugin's signing secret has been exposed, or just want a fresh one, open the plugin's page and choose Rotate secret under its delivery-secret section. Loombre asks you to confirm (the plugin will need to be reconfigured with the new value before deliveries verify correctly again), then shows the new value — once, exactly the same way as at registration. The old value stops working immediately.
When a plugin asks for more
A plugin's own program can change over time — a new version might add a capability, ask to see more kinds of media, or request a wider slice of your restricted-content library than what you originally approved. Choosing Check for updates on the plugin's page re-reads what it currently declares and compares it against what you approved; if it now asks for more, Loombre treats that exactly like a brand-new registration request: the plugin is turned off and marked Needs re-approval until you look it over.
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Choosing Review what changed shows you what's different, in the same capability-card format the original registration used — approve the parts you're comfortable with (and nothing else) to bring the plugin back on. If the plugin's request shrinks or stays the same instead of growing, Loombre simply applies that quietly, with nothing for you to approve.
Removing a plugin
Open the plugin's page and choose Remove. Loombre asks you to confirm, since this can't be undone — removing a plugin deletes its registration and every secret it had stored (its signing secret and any configuration secrets alike). Nothing about the plugin's own program is affected; it simply stops being registered with your server.