Backend Development

UniRTM's core philosophy centers on extreme performance and native cross-platform compatibility. Traditional Bash-based tool managers (like asdf) are notoriously slow and often plagued with OS-specific compatibility issues during parsing, downloading, and compiling phases.

If you need a tool that isn't on the officially supported list, you can write your own Backend Plugin for UniRTM.

Architecture Design

UniRTM plugins are not built on Bash scripts; they are natively compiled modules. This allows them to run at native speeds on Windows, macOS, and Linux, leveraging multi-threading capabilities for downloads and extractions.

Currently, the primary way to develop a backend plugin is by writing a Go Interface.

The Core Interface (ToolBackend)

Every custom tool backend needs to implement the ToolBackend interface exposed by UniRTM:

type ToolBackend interface {
    // The name of the plugin, e.g., "nodejs"
    Name() string

    // List all available versions (used for resolving `latest`)
    ListRemoteVersions() ([]string, error)

    // Resolve and populate download metadata, including URL and checksum
    ResolveVersion(version string) (*ResolvedTool, error)

    // Download the corresponding distribution package
    Download(resolved *ResolvedTool, destPath string) error

    // Extract and execute the installation logic
    Install(downloadedPath string, installDir string) error
}

1. ListRemoteVersions

Typically, you make HTTP requests to APIs (like GitHub Releases, Node.js Dist) here, fetch the release tags, and sort them using Semantic Versioning (SemVer).

2. ResolveVersion

Once the user specifies a version (e.g., 20.11.0), you construct the exact download URL based on the user's OS (GOOS) and Architecture (GOARCH). If the official provider offers checksums, you should fetch the sha256 hash and return it here, as it will be used to populate the unirtm.lock file.

3. Download

UniRTM provides a built-in, high-performance Downloader module that supports resumable downloads and progress bars. In most cases, you simply delegate the work: unirtm.DefaultDownloader.Download(url, destPath).

4. Install

Extract the downloaded archive. If it's a binary distribution, simply extract it to the target directory and set up bin/ symlinks. If it's a source tarball, you would execute compilation commands like make && make install here.

Registering Your Plugin

Once your backend is developed, you register it in the main entry point:

package main

import (
    "github.com/snowdreamtech/UniRTM/core"
    "github.com/my-org/unirtm-plugin-rust"
)

func main() {
    core.RegisterBackend(rust.NewRustBackend())
    core.Execute()
}

Note: In the future, we will support an isolated WebAssembly (WASM) plugin system. This will allow developers to write high-performance, sandboxed plugins using Rust, Zig, or TypeScript, without needing to recompile the main UniRTM binary. Stay tuned!