reckless -- Issue a command to the reckless plugin manager utility

SYNOPSIS

reckless command [target/subcommand] [target]

DESCRIPTION

The reckless RPC starts a reckless process with the command and target provided. Node configuration, network, and lightning direrctory are automatically passed to the reckless utility.

command (string) (one of "install", "uninstall", "search", "enable", "disable", "source", "--version"): Determines which command to pass to reckless
- command install takes a plugin_name to search for and install a named plugin.
- command uninstall takes a plugin_name and attempts to uninstall a plugin of the same name.
- command search takes a plugin_name to search for a named plugin.
  ...
target/subcommand (one of, optional): Target of a reckless command or a subcommand.:
- (string)
- (array)
target (one of, optional): name of a plugin to install/uninstall/search/enable/disable or source to add/remove.:
- (string)
- (array)

NOTES

Reckless currently supports python and javascript plugins.
Running the first time will prompt the user that their lightningd's bitcoin config will be appended (or created) to inherit the reckless config file (this config is specific to bitcoin by default.). Management of plugins will subsequently modify this file.

Available option flags:
-d, --reckless-dir reckless_dir: specify an alternative data directory for reckless to use. Useful if your .lightning is protected from execution.

-l, --lightning lightning_data_dir: lightning data directory (defaults to $USER/.lightning)

-c, --conf lightning_config: pass the config used by lightningd

-r, --regtest: use the regtest network and config instead of bitcoin mainnet

-v, --verbose: request additional debug output

--network=network: specify bitcoin, regtest, liquid, liquid-regtest, litecoin, signet, or testnet networks. (default: bitcoin)

--version: print the version of reckless and exit

Troubleshooting tips:

Plugins must be executable. For python plugins, the shebang is invoked, so python3 should be available in your environment. This can be verified with which Python3. The default reckless directory is $USER/.lightning/reckless and it should be possible for the lightningd user to execute files located here. If this is a problem, the option flag reckless -d=<my_alternate_dir> may be used to relocate the reckless directory from its default. Consider creating a permanent alias in this case.
Python plugins are installed to their own virtual environments. The environment is activated by a wrapper (named the same as the plugin) which then imports and executes the actual plugin entrypoint.

For Plugin Developers:

To make your plugin compatible with reckless install:

Choose a unique plugin name: The plugin entrypoint is inferred. Naming your plugin executable the same as your plugin name will allow reckless to identify it correctly (file extensions are okay.)
For python plugins, a requirements.txt is the preferred medium for python dependencies. A pyproject.toml will be used as a fallback, but test installation via pip install -e . - Poetry looks for additional files in the working directory, whereas with pip, any references to these will require something like packages = [{ include = "*.py" }] under the [tool.poetry] section.
Additional repository sources may be added with reckless source add https://my.repo.url/here however, https://github.com/lightningd/plugins is included by default. Consider adding your plugin lightningd/plugins to make installation simpler.
If your plugin is located in a subdirectory of your repo with a different name than your plugin, it will likely be overlooked.

RETURN VALUE

On success, an object is returned, containing:

result (array of strings): Output of the requested reckless command.:
- (string, optional)
log (array of strings): Verbose log entries of the requested reckless command.:
- (string, optional)

AUTHOR

Antoine Poinsot wrote the original reckless plugin on which this is based.

Rusty Russell wrote the outline for the reckless utility's function

Alex Myers <[email protected]> is mainly responsible for the reckless code and this man page, with thanks to Christian Decker for extensive review.

RESOURCES

Core-Lightning plugins repo: https://github.com/lightningd/plugins
Main web site: https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning

EXAMPLES

Example 1:

Request:

lightning-cli reckless -k "command"="search" "target/subcommand"="backup"

{
  "id": "example:reckless#1",
  "method": "reckless",
  "params": {
    "command": "search",
    "target/subcommand": "backup"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "result": [
    "https://github.com/lightningd/plugins"
  ],
  "log": [
    "DEBUG: Warning: Reckless requires write access",
    "DEBUG: fetching from gh API: https://api.github.com/repos/lightningd/plugins/contents/",
    "DEBUG: fetching from gh API: https://api.github.com/repos/lightningd/plugins/git/trees/294f93d7060799439c994daa84f534c4d1458325",
    "INFO: found backup in source: https://github.com/lightningd/plugins",
    "DEBUG: entry: None",
    "DEBUG: sub-directory: backup"
  ]
}

Example 2: