Plugins

What a plugin is

A plugin is a floating window with its own UI that runs inside the studio. It talks to the editor only through a narrow, typed API — reading the document, reacting to your selection, inserting a layer, showing a toast — and only for the things it explicitly asked to do. Plugins show up in the Pluginsmenu next to your document, alongside AtomCut's own built-in tools.

Installing a plugin

Anyone can install a plugin from a .zip of its bundle — no developer tools required. Open Plugins → Manage plugins… from the menu bar, then Install from file and pick the .zip. It appears in the Plugins menu immediately, ready to open.

Nothing installed yet and just want to see how it feels? The manager has an Add sample button that installs a small, real example plugin the same way a downloaded one would install.

Managing plugins

The plugin manager lists everything you've installed. Each row has a switch to enable or disableit — disabling closes its window if it's open, and it drops out of the Plugins menu until you switch it back on — and a remove button to uninstall it for good.

A plugin's id is its identity: installing a .zip whose id matches one you already have replaces itrather than adding a duplicate. That's how updates work — reinstall the new version's .zip and AtomCut swaps the code and version number in place, keeping the plugin enabled (or disabled) exactly as you left it.

The safety model

Every plugin runs inside a sandboxed iframe with a null origin— as far as the browser is concerned, it isn't part of AtomCut, another site, or anything else. It can't reach into the page it's embedded in, read your files, or touch your account — the only door out is a small set of typed calls to the editor, and each one is gated behind a capabilitythe plugin declared up front — things like “read the document” or “show a notification.” A plugin that never asked for a capability simply can't use it; there is no back door into the app's real state.

Building your own? Continue to Build a plugin, or jump straight to the manifest & API reference.