How to install plugins without using a third-party host?

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@Falco @pfaffman Thank you, your answers resolved my doubts.

I’m leaving my app.yml configuration here in case it’s useful to anyone trying to load local plugins into Discourse from the host machine.

## The Docker container is stateless; all data is stored in /shared
volumes:
  - volume:
      host: /var/discourse/shared/standalone
      guest: /shared
  - volume:
      host: /var/discourse/shared/standalone/log/var-log
      guest: /var/log
  - volume:
      host: /var/discourse/plugins
      guest: /var/plugins

## Plugins go here
## see https://meta.discourse.org/t/19157 for details
hooks:
  after_code:
    - exec:
        cd: $home/plugins
        cmd:
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/docker_manager.git
          - cp -a /var/plugins/. $home/plugins/

In my setup, I keep all custom plugins in /var/discourse/plugins on the host.

The mounted directory becomes available inside the container as /var/plugins, and during the after_code hook, the command:

cp -a /var/plugins/. $home/plugins/

copies all mounted plugins into Discourse’s native plugins directory ($home/plugins, typically /var/www/discourse/plugins).

This makes it possible to manage plugins directly from the host without using git-based plugin installation or relying on third-party hosting services.