Running Buf Plugins Locally

Buf plugins are designed to run in the cloud, but you can also run them locally. This is useful for testing, development, and running plugins that are self-hosted or not yet available in the Buf Schema Registry.

In this example, we will use the Go plugins for Protocol Buffers and gRPC.

To get started, clone the bufbuild/plugins repository. Then, run the following command to build the Go plugins for Protocol Buffers and gRPC:

make PLUGINS="protocolbuffers/go grpc/go" build

Finally, update your buf.gen.yaml to use the local plugins:

version: v2
clean: true
managed:
  enabled: true
  override:
    - file_option: go_package_prefix
      value: github.com/amammay/genplay/gen
plugins:
-  - remote: buf.build/protocolbuffers/go:v1.36.11
-    out: gen/go
-    opt:
-      - paths=source_relative
-  - remote: buf.build/grpc/go:v1.6.1
-    out: gen/go
-    opt:
-      - paths=source_relative
+  - local: ["docker", "run", "-i", "-a", "stdin", "-a", "stdout", "-a", "stderr", "bufbuild/plugins-grpc-go:v1.6.1"]
+    out: gen/go
+    opt:
+      - paths=source_relative
+  - local: ["docker", "run", "-i", "-a", "stdin", "-a", "stdout", "-a", "stderr", "bufbuild/plugins-protocolbuffers-go:v1.36.11"]
+    out: gen/go
+    opt:
+      - paths=source_relative

The important thing to note here is the attaching of stdin, stdout, and stderr to the Docker container. This allows Buf to communicate with the plugin via standard input and output. The -i flag keeps stdin open when running the container.