owlry/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-03-28-builtin-providers-design.md

Built-in Providers Migration — Design Spec

Goal

Move calculator, converter, and system from external .so plugins (owlry-plugins repo) to native providers compiled into owlry-core. Remove 3 plugin AUR packages (transitional), 4 meta AUR packages (already deleted). Update READMEs for both repos.

Architecture

The 3 plugins currently use the FFI plugin API (PluginVTable, PluginItem, etc.) and are loaded as .so files by NativePluginLoader. As built-in providers, they become native Rust modules inside owlry-core/src/providers/ implementing the existing Provider trait — same as ApplicationProvider and CommandProvider.

No changes to the plugin system itself. External plugins continue to work via .so loading.

Components

New modules in owlry-core

• providers/calculator.rs — port of owlry-plugin-calculator (231 lines, depends on meval)
• providers/converter/mod.rs — port of owlry-plugin-converter entry point
• providers/converter/parser.rs — query parsing (235 lines, no new deps)
• providers/converter/units.rs — unit definitions + conversion (944 lines, no new deps)
• providers/converter/currency.rs — ECB rate fetching (313 lines, depends on reqwest blocking + dirs + serde)
• providers/system.rs — port of owlry-plugin-system (257 lines, no new deps)

New owlry-core dependencies

• meval — math expression evaluation (currently optional behind lua feature, make required)
• reqwest with blocking feature — ECB currency rate fetching (currently optional behind lua, make required)
• dirs — already a dependency
• serde/serde_json — already dependencies

Modified files

• owlry-core/src/providers/mod.rs — register the 3 new providers in ProviderManager, honor config toggles, classify calculator+converter as dynamic providers
• owlry-core/Cargo.toml — move meval and reqwest from optional to required
• owlry-core/src/config/mod.rs — add converter config toggle (calculator and system already exist)

Provider classification

• Calculator → dynamic (queried per-keystroke via query())
• Converter → dynamic (queried per-keystroke via query())
• System → static (populated at refresh(), returns fixed list of actions)

Provider Type IDs

Built-in providers use ProviderType::Plugin(String) with fixed IDs to maintain backward compatibility with the UI highlighting and filter system:

• Calculator: ProviderType::Plugin("calc".into())
• Converter: ProviderType::Plugin("conv".into())
• System: ProviderType::Plugin("sys".into())

This ensures the UI's highlighting logic (matches!(id.as_str(), "calc" | "conv")) and CSS badge classes (.owlry-badge-calc, .owlry-badge-sys) continue to work without changes.

Config

Existing toggles in [providers]:

[providers]
calculator = true   # already exists
system = true       # already exists
converter = true    # new — add with default true

When a toggle is false, the provider is not registered in ProviderManager at startup.

Currency Conversion

The converter's currency feature uses reqwest (blocking) to fetch ECB exchange rates with a 24-hour file cache at ~/.cache/owlry/ecb_rates.json. If the HTTP fetch fails (no network, timeout), currency conversion silently returns no results — unit conversion still works. This matches current plugin behavior.

AUR Changes

Main repo (owlry)

• aur/owlry-core/PKGBUILD — bump version
• Remove aur/owlry-meta-* directories (4 dirs, already deleted from AUR)

Plugins repo (owlry-plugins)

• Remove crates: owlry-plugin-calculator, owlry-plugin-converter, owlry-plugin-system
• Remove AUR dirs: aur/owlry-plugin-calculator, aur/owlry-plugin-converter, aur/owlry-plugin-system from tracked files
• Push transitional PKGBUILDs to the 3 AUR repos:

pkgname=owlry-plugin-calculator  # (and converter, system)
pkgver=<last_version>
pkgrel=99
pkgdesc="Transitional package — calculator is now built into owlry-core"
arch=('any')
depends=('owlry-core>=<new_version>')
replaces=('owlry-plugin-calculator')
# No source, no build, no package body

Conflict prevention

When owlry-core gains built-in calculator/converter/system, users who have the old .so plugins installed will have both the built-in provider AND the .so plugin active — duplicate results. The daemon should detect this: if a built-in provider ID matches a loaded native plugin ID, skip the native plugin. Add this check in ProviderManager when registering native plugins.

README Updates

Main repo README

• Package table: remove separate plugin entries for calculator, converter, system — note them as built-in to owlry-core
• Remove meta package section entirely
• Update install examples (no need to install calculator/converter/system separately)

Plugins repo README

• Remove calculator, converter, system from plugin listing
• Add note that these 3 are built into owlry-core

Testing

• Port existing plugin tests directly — they test provider logic, not FFI wrappers
• cargo test -p owlry-core --lib covers all 3 new providers
• Add conflict detection test (built-in provider ID vs native plugin ID)
• Manual verification: = 5+3 (calc), 20F (conv), 20 euro to dollar (currency), system actions