---
name: "Module::Starter::Plugin"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libmodule-starter-perl"
version: "1.770+dfsg-2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Module::Starter::Plugin"
---

# Module::Starter::Plugin(3pm)

## NAME

Module::Starter::Plugin -- how Module::Starter plugins work

## VERSION

version 1.77

## DESCRIPTION

This document is a guide to writing plugins for Module::Starter.  Currently, as is evident, it isn't very comprehensive.  It should provide enough information for writing effective plugins, though.  After all, Module::Starter's guts are nice and simple.

### "Module::Starter-\>import"

Module::Starter provides an import method, the arguments to which are plugins, in the order in which they should be loaded.  If no plugins are given, Module::Starter::Simple (and only Module::Starter::Simple) is loaded.

By default, the given modules are required and arranged in an *is-a* chain. That is, Module::Starter subclasses the last plugin given, which subclasses the second-to-last, up to the first plugin given, which is the base class.  If a plugin provides a `"load_plugins"` method, however, the remaining plugins to be loaded are passed to that method, which is responsible for loading the rest of the plugins.

This architecture suggests two kinds of plugins:

### engine plugins

An engine is a plugin that stands alone, implementing the public `"create_distro"` method and all the functionality required to carry out that implementation.  The only engine included with Module::Starter is Module::Starter::Simple, and I'm not sure any more will be seen in the wild any time soon.

### plain old plugins

Other plugins are designed to subclass an engine and alter its behavior, just as a normal subclass alters its parent class's.  These plugins may add features to Module::Starter engines, or may just provide general APIs for other plugins to exploit (like Module::Starter::Plugin::Template.)

The template plugin is a simple example of a plugin that alters an engine to accept further plugins.  Other plugins like template will probably be written in the near future, and plugins that exploit the API provided by Module::Starter::Plugin::Template will be available on the CPAN.

## AUTHOR

Ricardo SIGNES `"<rjbs at cpan.org>"`

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2005, Ricardo SIGNES.  All Rights Reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.