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Posted on Mar 17

Building an Extensible Rust CLI Toolbox with a Plugin System

#rust #cli #opensource #vibecoding

I recently built a project called terminal-info, a Rust CLI toolbox designed to display useful system and environment information directly in the terminal.

GitHub: https://github.com/T-1234567890/terminal-info

The project originally started as a small terminal weather CLI, but over time, it developed into something closer to a CLI toolbox with plugins.

Instead of being a single-purpose tool, the goal is to make it extensible so developers can add their own tools and diagnostics.

What terminal-info does

Running the CLI shows a simple dashboard with useful information:

┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│           Terminal Info          │
├──────────────────────────────────┤
│ Location: Shenzhen               │
│ Weather: Clear sky, 20.3°C       │
│ Time: 2026-03-16 xx:xx:xx        │
│ Network: xxx.xxx.x.xx            │
│ CPU: 19.3%                       │
│ Memory: 16.2 GiB / 24.0 GiB used │
└──────────────────────────────────┘

The dashboard is only the default overview.

Terminal Info provides many additional commands and plugins
for diagnostics, networking, system information, and developer tools.

Why I added a plugin system

While building the CLI, I realized that many terminal tools are limited by being fixed-feature applications.

For example:

system info tools
monitoring tools
diagnostics utilities

They are useful, but extending them often requires modifying the core codebase.

So I developed terminal-info CLI with a plugin system.

The idea is simple:

core CLI
+ plugin SDK
+ plugin registry

Developers can write plugins that extend the CLI without modifying the main repository.

Security considerations

One challenge with plugin systems is security.

To address this, the project includes:

signed plugin releases
integrity verification
registry review
local trust controls

Users must explicitly trust a plugin before it can run.

Project goals

The long-term goal is to turn terminal-info into a general-purpose CLI toolbox where new functionality can live as plugins.

Instead of replacing existing tools, the idea is to provide a platform where small terminal utilities can coexist and evolve.

Feedback welcome

The project is still early and I would really appreciate feedback from the community, especially on the plugin architecture and developer experience.

GitHub: https://github.com/T-1234567890/terminal-info
Docs: https://github.com/T-1234567890/terminal-info/tree/main/docs

The project is open source and licensed under Apache 2.0.

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