inspec/docs/plugins.md

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About InSpec and Train Plugins

InSpec and Train Plugins

What are InSpec Plugins?

InSpec Plugins are optional software components that extend the capabilities of InSpec. For example, inspec-iggy is a Plugin project that aims to generate InSpec controls from infrastructure-as-code files. Plugins are distributed as RubyGems, and InSpec manages their installation. InSpec Plugins always begin with the prefix 'inspec-'.

What are Train Plugins?

Train Plugins allow InSpec to speak to new kinds of targets (typically new remote targets or APIs, but you could treat the local system in a new way if you wished to). For example, if you wanted to audit a Kubernetes cluster, you might want a transport that can talk to the supervisor API. You would develop a Train Plugin for that, and install it using the InSpec command line. Train Plugins always begin with the prefix 'train-'.

What can plugins do?

Currently, each plugin can offer one or more of these capabilities:

• define a new command-line-interface (CLI) command suite (inspec plugins)
• connectivity to new types of hosts or cloud providers (train plugins)

Future work might include new capability types, such as:

• reporters (output generators)
• DSL extensions at the file, control, or test level
• attribute fetchers to allow reading InSpec attributes from new sources (for example, a remote encrypted key-value store)

How do I find out which plugins are available?

The InSpec CLI can tell you which plugins are available:

$ inspec plugin search inspec-

How do I install and manage plugins?

The InSpec command line now offers a new subcommand just for managing plugins.

You can install a plugin by running:

$ inspec plugin install inspec-some-plugin
$ inspec plugin install train-some-plugin

For more details on what the plugin command can do, see the online help, or run inspec plugin help.

How do I write a plugin?

InSpec Plugins

For details on how to author an InSpec Plugin, see the developer documentation

Train Plugins

For details on how to author a Train Plugin, see the developer documentation