Plugins

Plugins are how you make Treeline your own. They add new views, commands, and functionality to the desktop app. Everything in Treeline is built on the same plugin system you have access to.

What Plugins Can Do

Plugins have access to a powerful SDK that lets you:

• Query your data - Read transactions, accounts, and balance history with SQL
• Create custom views - Build Svelte components that appear in the app
• Store plugin data - Create tables in your own schema for plugin-specific storage
• Show notifications - Toast messages for success, error, warning, and info states
• React to changes - Subscribe to data refresh events when syncs or imports complete
• Navigate the app - Open other views, including built-in and plugin views
• Persist settings - Store user preferences that survive app restarts

Available Plugins

In addition to the built-in plugins (Accounts, Transactions, Query), Treeline has a growing collection of plugins:

Plugin	Description
Budget	Track spending against tag-based budget categories with rollovers
Savings Goals	Set savings targets and track your progress toward each goal
Cash Flow	Plan ahead by scheduling expected income and expenses
Subscriptions	Automatically detects recurring charges from your transaction history
Emergency Fund	See how long your emergency fund would last based on actual spending

Browse and install plugins from Settings > Plugins in the desktop app, or visit treeline.money/plugins for the full catalog.

CLI Installation

You can also install plugins from the command line:

# Install from GitHub
tl plugin install https://github.com/treeline-money/plugin-budget

# Install from a local directory (for development)
tl plugin install /path/to/my-plugin

After installing via CLI, restart the desktop app to load the new plugin.

Plugin Architecture

Plugins are self-contained JavaScript bundles built with Svelte 5. Each plugin:

• Declares its metadata and permissions in manifest.json
• Exports a plugin object with activate() and optional deactivate() functions
• Registers views, sidebar items, and commands during activation
• Receives an SDK instance when views are mounted

my-plugin/
├── manifest.json      # Plugin identity and permissions
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts       # Entry point - registers views and commands
│   └── MyView.svelte  # Svelte 5 component
└── dist/
    └── index.js       # Built bundle (generated)

Data Access

Plugins operate in a sandboxed environment:

• Read access - Declare which core tables you need in permissions.read
• Write access - Plugins have full read/write to their own schema (plugin_<id>.*). Plugins can also write to other tables if explicitly listed in permissions.write

The SDK handles permission validation automatically. If you try to access a table you haven’t declared, the query will fail.

Building Plugins

Ready to build something? Here’s the path:

1. Creating Plugins - Scaffold a new plugin with tl plugin new
2. SDK Reference - Full API documentation
3. Publishing - Share your plugin with others

The plugin system is designed for tinkering. Start with the template, experiment with the SDK, and build the features you want to see.