What Is a Plugin?

We want grammY to be concise and minimal, but extensible. Why? Because not everyone uses everything! Plugins are designed as extra functionalities added to said pieces of software.

Plugins in grammY

Some plugins are right built-in into the grammY core library because we assume that many bots need them. This makes it easier for new users to use them, without having to install a new package first.

Most plugins are published alongside the core package of grammY, we call them official plugins. They are installed from @grammyjs/* on npm, and they are published under the @grammyjs organization on GitHub. We coordinate their releases with the releases of grammY, and we make sure that everything works well together. Every section of the plugin docs for an official plugin has the package name in its title. As an example, the grammY runner plugin (runner) needs to be installed via npm install @grammyjs/runner. (If you are using Deno and not Node.js, you should import the plugin from https://deno.land/x instead, so from the grammy_runner module’s mod.ts file.)

There are also a few third-party plugins. Anyone can publish them. We don’t provide any guarantees that they are up to date, well-documented, or work together with other plugins. If you want, your own third-party plugin can also be listed on the website so that more people can find out about it.

Overview

We compiled a neat overview for you with short descriptions for each plugin. Installing plugins is fun and easy, and we want you to know what we have in store for you.

Click on any package name to learn more about the respective plugin.

Plugin	Package	Description
Sessions	built-in	Store user data in your database
Inline and Custom Keyboards	built-in	Simplify building inline and custom keyboards
Media Groups	built-in	Simplify sending media groups and editing media
Inline Queries	built-in	Easily build results for inline queries
Auto-retry	auto-retry	Automatically handle rate limiting
Conversations	conversations	Build powerful conversational interfaces and dialogs
Chat Members	chat-members	Track which user joined which chat
Emoji	emoji	Simplify using emoji in code
Files	files	Easily handle files
Hydration	hydrate	Call methods on objects returned from API calls
Internationalization	i18n or fluent	Let your bot speak multiple languages
Interactive Menus	menu	Design dynamic button menus with flexible navigation
Parse Mode	parse-mode	Simplify message formatting
Rate Limiter	ratelimiter	Automatically restrict users who spam your bot
Router	router	Route messages to different parts of your code
Runner	runner	Perform long polling concurrently and at scale
Stateless Question	stateless-question	Create dialogs without a data storage
Throttler	transformer-throttler	Slow down API calls

We also have some third-party plugins! You can find them in the navigation menu under Plugins > Third-Party. Be sure to check them out, too!

Types of Plugins in grammY

All that glitters is gold, right? Well, a different kind of gold! grammY can take advantage of two types of plugins: middleware plugins and transformer plugins. In simple terms, plugins in grammY return either a middleware function or a transformer one. Let’s talk about the differences.

Type I: Middleware Plugins

Middleware is a function that handles incoming data in various forms. Middleware plugins are plugins that are fed to a bot as—well, you guessed it—middleware. This means that you install them via bot.use.

Type II: Transformer Plugins

A transformer function is the opposite of middleware! It is a function that handles outgoing data. Transformer plugins are plugins that are fed to a bot as a—crazy! guessed it again—transformer function. This means that you install them via bot.api.config.use.

Create Your Own Plugins

If you want to develop a plugin and share it with other users (even published on the official website of grammY), there is a useful guide that you can check out.

Ideas for More Plugins

We are collecting ideas for new plugins on GitHub in this issue.