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 requires the pilot:default permission for its internal __callback IPC command. Add it to your capability file (e.g. src-tauri/capabilities/default.json):

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

Without this permission, eval commands will time out with “eval timed out after 10s”.

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.