Evidence - Data Source Plugin Examples

This repository demonstrates how to create a new data source as a plugin to Evidence. Additional instructions can be found in the docs

Examples In this Repository

• Google Sheets
• Influx DB

Creating your own plugin

A plugin only requires three files - others are optional, though can help with testing, documenting, and version control etc.

your-plugin-repo/
|-- README.md
|-- package.json
`-- index.mjs

• README.md - any required documentation for users
• package.json - import any required dependencies, specify how the plugin is named in Evidence, and publish options
• index.mjs - define how the data is fetched from your data source, and passed to Evidence. You normally need to:
  • Define Options: Expose fields to allow users to configure their source: usernames, passwords, secrets, API keys etc
  • Create a Runner: Extract data from a source either by running a query (SQL) or some other opearation (non-SQL)
  • Create a Test Function: A simple query or operation to allow users to verify if connection is configured correctly
  • Transform Data: Get extracted data into the table structure Evidence requires
  • Define Types: Map each different data type to one of the four Evidence Types: NUMBER, DATE, STRING, BOOL

Publishing your plugin

Plugins should be published to a registry to be accessible to Evidence projects.

The most popular registry for Node.js packages is npm.

1. Create an npm account
2. Login to your npm account

npm login

3. Once you have configured your package.json, you can publish your package

npm publish

Where to start

We recommend copying the package.json and index.mjs from one of the following as a starting point.

• The Postgres source is a good example for a SQL source
• The GSheets plugin is a good example for a Non-SQL source