Octopus
1.x
Docs/Octopus/Built-in Plugins
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Reading2 min
Updated31 Jul 2026
Sourcev1/plugins/built-in.mdx

Built-in Plugins

Warning

There are no bundled plugins in Octopus today. Neither the plugin SDK crate (octopus-plugin-api), the plugin runtime (octopus-plugin-runtime), nor the dynamic-loading crate (octopus-plugins) contains any concrete Plugin implementations beyond test fixtures. There is no registry of ready-to-enable plugins, and the plugins: configuration array is not consumed by the gateway (see the overview).

Any older documentation or example YAML referencing plugins like jwt-auth, redis-cache, rate-limiter, or kafka-producer as built-in plugins is inaccurate — those names do not exist as plugins in the codebase.

What the crates actually contain01

CrateConcrete pluginsWhat's there instead
octopus-plugin-apiNoneThe Plugin trait and capability traits (RequestInterceptor, AuthProvider, TransformPlugin, ProtocolHandler, ScriptInterceptorPlugin), context, and error types.
octopus-plugin-runtimeNoneLifecycle management (PluginRegistry, PluginManager) and the HotReloadWatcher.
octopus-pluginsNoneThe dynamic shared-library PluginLoader and the octopus_declare_plugin! ABI macro.

The traits, lifecycle, and loader are real and tested. What is missing is a set of shipped plugin implementations and the wiring to register them.

Where those capabilities live today02

The features you might expect as "built-in plugins" are implemented elsewhere in the gateway as first-class middleware and auth providers — and those are wired into the request path.

Middleware

The octopus-middleware crate provides cross-cutting request/response behaviour as middleware (not plugins), including request ID, timeout, logging, rate limiting, CORS, compression, IP filtering, forward auth, caching, header/body transforms, circuit breaking, retry, redirects, security headers, WAF, bot detection, canary, deduplication, connection/request limits, and audit logging.

These are configured and applied directly, independent of the plugin system.

Authentication and authorization

Authentication is provided by octopus-auth through its own AuthProvider trait (distinct from the plugin-api AuthProvider), with built-in providers for JWT, OIDC, API key, forward-auth, and mTLS. Authorization uses a Rhai-based rule engine and/or OPA. These are wired in via the auth gateway middleware.

Note

So if you were looking for "JWT authentication" or "rate limiting": they exist and work — just as middleware / auth providers, configured through their own sections, not as plugins in the plugins: array.

Roadmap03

Bundled plugins (and the wiring to load them from the plugins: array) are not yet present. When that work lands, this page will enumerate each shipped plugin and its configuration keys. Until then, this page intentionally lists nothing as "available" to avoid implying support that does not exist.