Basic Types of Plugins

While PluGeth has been designed to be versatile and customizable, when learning the project it can be helpful to think of plugins as being of four different archetypes.

RPC Methods

These plugins provide new json rpc methods to access several objects containing real time and historic data.

Subcommand

A subcommand redifines the total behavior of Geth and could stand on its own. In contrast with the other plugin types which, in general, are meant to capture and manipulate information, a subcommand is meant to change the overall behavior of Geth. It may do this in order to capture information but the primary fuctionality is a modulation of geth behaviour.

Tracers

Tracers are used to collect information about a transaction or block during EVM execution. They can be written to refine the results of a debug trace or written to delver custom data using various other objects available from the PluGeth APIs.

Subscriptions

Subscriptions provide real time notification of data from the EVM as it processes transactions.

Note

Plugins are not limited to a singular functionality and can be customized to operate as hybrids of the above. See blockupdates as an example.