# Plugins and apps

:::note[Status]
Partly built. MCP, personal API tokens, OAuth sign-in with scoped tokens for MCP clients, and signed outgoing webhooks for a workspace ([Receive webhooks](/guides/webhooks/)) exist today. Everything else on this page is the accepted design, not yet built.
:::

## The constraint

Pickpost holds every user's social network tokens. Any code running inside the server process can read all of them. That decides who may run code where.

| Who writes it | Where it runs | What it can reach |
|---|---|---|
| Pickpost | inside the server, compiled in | everything, like the rest of the code |
| anyone else | its own server, as an app | only what a user granted it, through the public API |

Pickpost will not load community plugins into the hosted service. One malicious or buggy plugin would expose every user's accounts.

## Official plugins

Built by the Pickpost team and compiled into the server. Each is one extension point:

- **Networks.** A new social network (LinkedIn, Bluesky, Instagram).
- **Actions.** A new capability. It shows up in the UI, the assistant, MCP and the REST API at once, with the same approval rules.
- **Content hooks.** Change a post just before it is published, for example add UTM tags.
- **Event sinks.** React to `post.published`, `post.failed`, `account.disconnected`.
- **Notification channels.** Email first, then others.

## Community apps

A community plugin is an app, the same model as Slack or Shopify apps:

1. **Manifest.** The app publishes `pickpost-app.json` with its name, the scopes it needs (`posts:read`, `posts:write`, ...) and the events it wants.
2. **Install is an OAuth consent.** The user sees the scopes and approves. The app gets a token for that user only.
3. **The app calls Pickpost** through the REST API or MCP, within its scopes. Public actions still become approval cards.
4. **Events arrive as signed webhooks**: an HMAC-SHA256 signature and a timestamp, retries with backoff, and a delivery log.
5. **UI inside Pickpost** runs in a sandboxed iframe from the app's own origin. Pickpost never runs third-party JavaScript in its own page.

## Order of work

1. Scoped tokens and OAuth for MCP clients, through Pickpost's sign-in service. Done.
2. Signed outgoing webhooks. Done for workspaces, added by their owners and admins; apps will subscribe to them at install.
3. App registry and install screens (third-party applications in the sign-in service).
4. UI surfaces for apps.