Plugin Setup

This guide walks you through integrating tauri-plugin-pilot into an existing Tauri v2 application.

1. Add the dependency

In your app’s src-tauri/Cargo.toml, add the plugin under [dependencies]:

src-tauri/Cargo.toml

[dependencies]
tauri-plugin-pilot = { git = "https://github.com/mpiton/tauri-pilot" }

2. Register the plugin

Register the plugin in your app entry point using a #[cfg(debug_assertions)] guard:

src-tauri/src/main.rs

fn main() {
    let mut builder = tauri::Builder::default();

    #[cfg(debug_assertions)]
    {
        builder = builder.plugin(tauri_plugin_pilot::init());
    }

    builder.run(tauri::generate_context!()).expect("error running app");
}

3. Debug-only compilation

The #[cfg(debug_assertions)] guard is intentional and important:

• The plugin is only compiled and included in debug builds
• Production builds (cargo build --release) will not include the plugin
• There is zero runtime overhead or binary size impact in production
• No need to strip or disable the plugin before shipping

4. Socket path

Once your app starts in dev mode, the plugin creates a Unix socket at:

/tmp/tauri-pilot-{identifier}.sock

The {identifier} value comes from the identifier field in your tauri.conf.json.

Example: an app with identifier com.myapp.dev creates the socket at:

/tmp/tauri-pilot-com.myapp.dev.sock

The CLI auto-discovers this socket when you run commands.

5. Permissions

The plugin operates through the standard Plugin API and WebView eval. It ships a default permission (allow-callback) for its internal __callback IPC command. If your app enforces Tauri capabilities, add the plugin’s permission set to your tauri.conf.json:

{
  "permissions": ["pilot:default"]
}

Most apps using the default Tauri capability configuration will not need any manual permission entries.

6. Verify the setup

Start your Tauri app in development mode, then test the connection from a second terminal:

# Terminal 1 — start your app
cargo tauri dev

# Terminal 2 — verify the plugin is reachable
tauri-pilot ping
# Expected output: pong

If you see pong, the plugin is running and the CLI can reach it. You are ready to start using the snapshot/action workflow.