docs: complete the plugin lifecycle model

[afourniernv]

Overview

Completes the Plugins concept with clear configuration, delivery, operator, and teardown boundaries.

• I confirm this contribution is my own work, or I have the right to submit it under this project's license.
• I searched existing issues and open pull requests, and this does not duplicate existing work.

Details

• Separates plugins.toml runtime configuration from relay-plugin.toml package manifests.
• Compares built-in, host-registered, and discoverable delivery models.
• Documents process-scoped ownership, cleanup, and the discoverable-plugin operator lifecycle.
• Adds the current experimental Switchyard component and its CLI feature and service requirements.

Where should the reviewer start?

Review Plugin Delivery Models and Discoverable Plugins in docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx.

Related Issues: (use one of the action keywords Closes / Fixes / Resolves / Relates to)

• Closes RELAY-622

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Documentation
  • Expanded plugin documentation with clearer definitions, configuration guidance, and authoring resources.
  • Added details on plugin activation, cleanup, setup failures, context, and process ownership.
  • Documented built-in, host-registered, and discoverable plugin delivery models.
  • Added information about the experimental Switchyard component and the discoverable-plugin operator lifecycle.

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• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

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**/*.mdx

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/review-doc-style/SKILL.md)

MDX top-of-file SPDX comments must use {/* ... */} delimiters instead of HTML comment delimiters (Must-Fix)

**/*.mdx: In MDX files, top-of-file comments must use JSX comment delimiters ({/* and */}); do not use HTML comments for MDX SPDX headers.
New or regenerated MDX files must use {/* ... */} for top-of-file SPDX comments.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

{docs,examples}/**/*

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/rename-surfaces/SKILL.md)

Update docs and examples.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/validate-change/SKILL.md)

**/*: Format changed files with the language-native formatter before the final lint/test pass.
If dynamic plugin behavior changed, use maintain-dynamic-plugins and include the native SDK, worker protocol, Python SDK, docs, packaging, and Codecov surfaces in the validation plan.
If code changes alter APIs, bindings, commands, paths, packaging behavior, observability/adaptive semantics, or documented best practices, update any dependent maintainer or consumer skills in the same branch.
During iteration, prefer uv run pre-commit run --files <changed files...>.
Before review or handoff, run uv run pre-commit run --all-files.

**/*: Use release tags in raw Rust-compatible SemVer without a leading v; tags such as v0.1.0 are prohibited.
Use branch prefixes feat/, fix/, docs/, test/, or refactor/ according to the change purpose.
Every commit in a pull request must include a DCO Signed-off-by: sign-off.
Before submitting a pull request, ensure pre-commit hooks, relevant tests, target-specific builds, documentation updates, and a rebase on the latest main are complete.
Use commit messages in the form type: short description, with a valid type and a first line under 72 characters.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

docs/**/*

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/validate-change/SKILL.md)

If documentation examples or commands under docs/ change, run the targeted docs checks appropriate to the change.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{md,mdx}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/validate-change/SKILL.md)

If links in documentation change, run just docs-linkcheck.

Use documented public APIs and stable wrapper commands in examples and user-facing documentation; do not rely on internal helpers.

**/*.{md,mdx}: Prefer the documented public API over internal shortcuts in documentation and examples.
Keep package names, repository references, and build commands current.
Contribution workflow documentation must require an issue before external contribution pull requests and note that NVIDIA contributors may use a GitHub or Linear issue.
Update entry-point documentation when examples or reading paths change.
Keep release-process and release-notes guidance in maintainer documentation such as RELEASING.md, rather than user-facing documentation pages or CHANGELOG.md.
Use stable user-facing wrappers at the scripts/ root in documentation and examples; reference namespaced helper paths only for internal maintenance documentation.
When detailed dynamic plugin guides exist, keep Rust native plugin examples, Python worker plugin examples, and grpc-v1 protocol details on separate pages.
Dynamic plugin manifests in documentation and examples should use compat.relay = ">=0.5,<1.0" unless deliberately narrower.
Render images, diagrams, tables, and other visual content at representative page widths, ensuring legibility and complete access without clipping; use responsive scaling, reflow, or overflow as appropriate and scope visual styling narrowly.
Dynamic plugin entry pages should link to native, worker, Rust example, Python example, and protocol pages when those pages exist.
Images, diagrams, tables, and custom visual content must remain legible and fully accessible at representative desktop and narrow page widths.
Release-policy documentation must point to GitHub Releases as the only release-history source of truth.
Run just docs when the documentation site changes; retain ./scripts/build-docs.sh html as the compatibility wrapper.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{md,mdx,py,go,js,ts}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/maintain-observability/SKILL.md)

Examples and documentation must use each exporter's documented flush/deregister order before shutdown.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

docs/**/*.{md,mdx}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (CONTRIBUTING.md)

Update relevant reference documentation when public behavior or APIs change.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{rs,py,go,js,jsx,ts,tsx,c,h,html,md,mdx,toml}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (CONTRIBUTING.md)

Include the appropriate SPDX copyright and Apache-2.0 license header in every source file.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{md,mdx,rst}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/review-doc-style/assets/nvidia-style-technical-docs.md)

**/*.{md,mdx,rst}: Use title case consistently for technical documentation headings and table headers; avoid quotation marks, ampersands, and exclamation marks in headings, while preserving official product, event, research, and whitepaper title case.
Format code elements, commands, parameters, package names, expressions, directories, file names, and paths in monospace; represent path placeholders with angle brackets inside monospace.
Format UI buttons, menus, fields, and labels in bold, and separate consecutive UI navigation labels with >.
Use quotation marks for error messages and strings when appropriate, italics for newly introduced terms and publication titles, and plain text for keyboard shortcuts.
Represent GitHub repositories with owner/repository link text, such as [NVIDIA/NeMo](link), rather than generic repository wording.
Introduce every code block with a complete sentence; do not let a code block complete or interrupt the grammar of surrounding prose; use syntax highlighting when supported.
Keep inline method, function, and class references consistent with nearby documentation; omit empty parentheses in prose when no call is shown.
Use descriptive link text matching the destination title when possible; avoid raw URLs, generic anchors, long-sentence links, and unnecessary links that distract from procedures.
Ensure lists have a complete lead-in sentence, more than one item, no more than two levels, parallel construction, one idea or action per item, and appropriate punctuation; use bullets for unordered items and numbers for ordered tasks.
Format definition lists with a bold term followed by a complete, parallel, punctuated definition.
Use tables for reference information, decision support, compatibility matrices, and comparable choices; flag one-row tables, missing captions or lead-ins, sentence-case headers where title case is expected, unexplained empty cells, and code or links that would be clearer as prose.
Write procedure steps as imperative ...

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

{docs/**,README.md,CONTRIBUTING.md,RELEASING.md,SECURITY.md}

⚙️ CodeRabbit configuration file

{docs/**,README.md,CONTRIBUTING.md,RELEASING.md,SECURITY.md}: Review documentation for technical accuracy against the current API, command correctness, and consistency across language bindings.
Flag stale examples, missing SPDX headers where required, and instructions that no longer match CI or pre-commit behavior.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

🔇 Additional comments (1)

docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx (1)

74-82: LGTM!

Also applies to: 271-304

---

Walkthrough

The plugin documentation defines configuration files, validation, runtime ownership, delivery models, Switchyard, and the lifecycle for discoverable plugins.

Changes

Plugin documentation

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Configuration and lifecycle documentation docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx	Defines plugin configuration areas, distinguishes plugins.toml from relay-plugin.toml, and documents validation, setup failures, deactivation, and cleanup.
Runtime and delivery models docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx	Clarifies plugin context, process-level ownership, and built-in, host-registered, and discoverable delivery models.
Switchyard and discoverable-plugin operations docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx	Documents Switchyard and the add, inspect, validate, enable, disable, and remove lifecycle for discoverable plugins.

Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title follows Conventional Commits format with the allowed lowercase type, an imperative summary, and no trailing period.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description includes all required sections, checklist confirmations, review guidance, change details, and a related issue.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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Actionable comments posted: 2

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx`:
- Around line 74-80: Update the “Deactivation and Cleanup” guidance to require
every configured exporter to complete its documented flush and deregister
sequence before clearing plugin configuration during graceful shutdown or test
teardown. Preserve the existing cleanup behavior while explicitly warning that
cleanup must occur only after exporter shutdown completes.
- Around line 288-298: Update the operator lifecycle list to include the
read-only plugins inspect operation, keeping its ordering consistent with the
documented workflow. Make every lifecycle entry unambiguous by using complete
nemo-relay CLI invocations, including the existing plugins validate entry, or
explicitly label all entries as subcommand names; use only the documented stable
wrapper command.

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• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

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📓 Path-based instructions (10)

**/*.mdx

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/review-doc-style/SKILL.md)

MDX top-of-file SPDX comments must use {/* ... */} delimiters instead of HTML comment delimiters (Must-Fix)

**/*.mdx: In MDX files, top-of-file comments must use JSX comment delimiters ({/* and */}); do not use HTML comments for MDX SPDX headers.
New or regenerated MDX files must use {/* ... */} for top-of-file SPDX comments.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

{docs,examples}/**/*

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/rename-surfaces/SKILL.md)

Update docs and examples.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/validate-change/SKILL.md)

**/*: Format changed files with the language-native formatter before the final lint/test pass.
If dynamic plugin behavior changed, use maintain-dynamic-plugins and include the native SDK, worker protocol, Python SDK, docs, packaging, and Codecov surfaces in the validation plan.
If code changes alter APIs, bindings, commands, paths, packaging behavior, observability/adaptive semantics, or documented best practices, update any dependent maintainer or consumer skills in the same branch.
During iteration, prefer uv run pre-commit run --files <changed files...>.
Before review or handoff, run uv run pre-commit run --all-files.

**/*: Use release tags in raw Rust-compatible SemVer without a leading v; tags such as v0.1.0 are prohibited.
Use branch prefixes feat/, fix/, docs/, test/, or refactor/ according to the change purpose.
Every commit in a pull request must include a DCO Signed-off-by: sign-off.
Before submitting a pull request, ensure pre-commit hooks, relevant tests, target-specific builds, documentation updates, and a rebase on the latest main are complete.
Use commit messages in the form type: short description, with a valid type and a first line under 72 characters.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

docs/**/*

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/validate-change/SKILL.md)

If documentation examples or commands under docs/ change, run the targeted docs checks appropriate to the change.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{md,mdx}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/validate-change/SKILL.md)

If links in documentation change, run just docs-linkcheck.

Use documented public APIs and stable wrapper commands in examples and user-facing documentation; do not rely on internal helpers.

**/*.{md,mdx}: Prefer the documented public API over internal shortcuts in documentation and examples.
Keep package names, repository references, and build commands current.
Contribution workflow documentation must require an issue before external contribution pull requests and note that NVIDIA contributors may use a GitHub or Linear issue.
Update entry-point documentation when examples or reading paths change.
Keep release-process and release-notes guidance in maintainer documentation such as RELEASING.md, rather than user-facing documentation pages or CHANGELOG.md.
Use stable user-facing wrappers at the scripts/ root in documentation and examples; reference namespaced helper paths only for internal maintenance documentation.
When detailed dynamic plugin guides exist, keep Rust native plugin examples, Python worker plugin examples, and grpc-v1 protocol details on separate pages.
Dynamic plugin manifests in documentation and examples should use compat.relay = ">=0.5,<1.0" unless deliberately narrower.
Render images, diagrams, tables, and other visual content at representative page widths, ensuring legibility and complete access without clipping; use responsive scaling, reflow, or overflow as appropriate and scope visual styling narrowly.
Dynamic plugin entry pages should link to native, worker, Rust example, Python example, and protocol pages when those pages exist.
Images, diagrams, tables, and custom visual content must remain legible and fully accessible at representative desktop and narrow page widths.
Release-policy documentation must point to GitHub Releases as the only release-history source of truth.
Run just docs when the documentation site changes; retain ./scripts/build-docs.sh html as the compatibility wrapper.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{md,mdx,py,go,js,ts}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/maintain-observability/SKILL.md)

Examples and documentation must use each exporter's documented flush/deregister order before shutdown.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

docs/**/*.{md,mdx}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (CONTRIBUTING.md)

Update relevant reference documentation when public behavior or APIs change.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{rs,py,go,js,jsx,ts,tsx,c,h,html,md,mdx,toml}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (CONTRIBUTING.md)

Include the appropriate SPDX copyright and Apache-2.0 license header in every source file.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

**/*.{md,mdx,rst}

📄 CodeRabbit inference engine (.agents/skills/review-doc-style/assets/nvidia-style-technical-docs.md)

**/*.{md,mdx,rst}: Use title case consistently for technical documentation headings and table headers; avoid quotation marks, ampersands, and exclamation marks in headings, while preserving official product, event, research, and whitepaper title case.
Format code elements, commands, parameters, package names, expressions, directories, file names, and paths in monospace; represent path placeholders with angle brackets inside monospace.
Format UI buttons, menus, fields, and labels in bold, and separate consecutive UI navigation labels with >.
Use quotation marks for error messages and strings when appropriate, italics for newly introduced terms and publication titles, and plain text for keyboard shortcuts.
Represent GitHub repositories with owner/repository link text, such as [NVIDIA/NeMo](link), rather than generic repository wording.
Introduce every code block with a complete sentence; do not let a code block complete or interrupt the grammar of surrounding prose; use syntax highlighting when supported.
Keep inline method, function, and class references consistent with nearby documentation; omit empty parentheses in prose when no call is shown.
Use descriptive link text matching the destination title when possible; avoid raw URLs, generic anchors, long-sentence links, and unnecessary links that distract from procedures.
Ensure lists have a complete lead-in sentence, more than one item, no more than two levels, parallel construction, one idea or action per item, and appropriate punctuation; use bullets for unordered items and numbers for ordered tasks.
Format definition lists with a bold term followed by a complete, parallel, punctuated definition.
Use tables for reference information, decision support, compatibility matrices, and comparable choices; flag one-row tables, missing captions or lead-ins, sentence-case headers where title case is expected, unexplained empty cells, and code or links that would be clearer as prose.
Write procedure steps as imperative ...

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

{docs/**,README.md,CONTRIBUTING.md,RELEASING.md,SECURITY.md}

⚙️ CodeRabbit configuration file

{docs/**,README.md,CONTRIBUTING.md,RELEASING.md,SECURITY.md}: Review documentation for technical accuracy against the current API, command correctness, and consistency across language bindings.
Flag stale examples, missing SPDX headers where required, and instructions that no longer match CI or pre-commit behavior.

Files:

• docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx

🔇 Additional comments (2)

docs/about-nemo-relay/concepts/plugins.mdx (2)

19-49: LGTM!

Also applies to: 55-57, 145-146, 163-184, 258-267

---

50-53: 📐 Maintainability & Code Quality

Run the required documentation checks before merge. The checks require the just command.