Use the execd shim

The execd Go 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 lets anyone 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".
4. Add a plugin.conf file 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. If Telegraf reads this config file, it won’t know which plugin it relates to.

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 by running it, for example ./plugin-name -config plugin.conf. If you’re building a processor or output, first feed valid metrics in on STDIN. Skip this step if you’re building an input. Metrics are written to STDOUT. You might need to press enter or wait for your poll duration to elapse to see data.

3. Press Ctrl-C to end your test.

4. Configure Telegraf to call your new plugin binary. For an input, this looks like:

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

For more configuration options, see the execd input plugin documentation.

Publish your plugin

Publish your plugin to GitHub and open a pull request back to the Telegraf repo to add it to the external plugins list.