Use the execd shim

The shim makes it easy to extract an internal input, processor, or output plugin from the main Telegraf repo out to a stand-alone repo. This allows anyone to build and run it as a separate app using one of the execd plugins:

• inputs.execd
• processors.execd
• outputs.execd

Extract a plugin using the shim wrapper

1. Move the project to an external repo. We recommend preserving the path structure: for example, if your plugin was located at plugins/inputs/cpu in the Telegraf repo, move it to plugins/inputs/cpu in the new repo.
2. Copy main.go into your project under the cmd folder. This serves as the entry point to the plugin when run as a stand-alone program.

   The shim isn’t designed to run multiple plugins at the same time, so include only one plugin per repo.

3. Edit the main.go file to import your plugin. For example,_ "github.com/me/my-plugin-telegraf/plugins/inputs/cpu". See an example of where to edit main.go here.
4. Add a plugin.conf for configuration specific to your plugin.

   This config file must be separate from the rest of the config for Telegraf, and must not be in a shared directory with other Telegraf configs.

Test and run your plugin

1. Build the cmd/main.go using the following command with your plugin name: go build -o plugin-name cmd/main.go
2. Test the binary:
3. If you’re building a processor or output, first feed valid metrics in on STDIN. Skip this step if you’re building an input.
4. Test out the binary by running it (for example, ./project-name -config plugin.conf). Metrics will be written to STDOUT. You might need to hit enter or wait for your poll duration to elapse to see data.
5. Press Ctrl-C to end your test.
6. Configure Telegraf to call your new plugin binary. For an input, this would look something like:

[[inputs.execd]]
  command = ["/path/to/rand", "-config", "/path/to/plugin.conf"]
  signal = "none"

Refer to the execd plugin documentation for more information.

Publish your plugin

Publishing your plugin to GitHub and open a Pull Request back to the Telegraf repo letting us know about the availability of your external plugin.