How can I install my own plugin written in Ruby?

[Xavier_Garzon]

I have a CSV file with my discourse user emails. I need to create a script that will run daily and send a specific email template to a specific set of users. Then, every day I need to run this script with the next set of users. How can I do that?

According to https://ask.discourse.com/ I need to create my code to automate this and place the code and data in the plugins folder. The code suggestion is here:

# frozen_string_literal: true
# name: auto-email
# about: A custom plugin to send bulk emails using automation and CSV files
# version: 0.3

require 'csv'

after_initialize do
  if defined?(DiscourseAutomation)
    # Define a unique scriptable for the automation
    DiscourseAutomation::Scriptable::AUTO_EMAIL_SCRIPT = "auto_email_script"

    add_automation_scriptable(DiscourseAutomation::Scriptable::AUTO_EMAIL_SCRIPT) do
      # Define fields for the automations UI:
      field :email_template, component: :message # Email body to be sent
      field :csv_file_name, component: :text # Name of CSV file in the "data" folder

      script do |context, fields, automation|
        # Define the path to the data folder
        data_folder_path = Rails.root.join("plugins", "auto-email", "data")

        # Get the CSV file name from the admin automation field
        csv_file_name = fields["csv_file_name"]["value"]
        csv_file_path = File.join(data_folder_path, csv_file_name)

        # Ensure the file exists
        unless File.exist?(csv_file_path)
          Rails.logger.warn("CSV file #{csv_file_path} not found!")
          next
        end

        # Parse the CSV file
        begin
          users = CSV.read(csv_file_path, headers: true).map(&:to_hash)
        rescue StandardError => e
          Rails.logger.error("Error reading CSV file (#{csv_file_name}): #{e.message}")
          next
        end

        # Get the email message content from the automation field
        email_body = fields["email_template"]["value"]

        # Iterate through users from the CSV and send emails
        users.each do |user_data|
          email = user_data["email"] || user_data["normalized_email"]
          user = User.find_by_email(email)
          
          if user
            begin
              # Send an automated email using SystemMessage
              SystemMessage.new(user).send_email(
                "custom_email_template", # Ensure this email template exists
                message_body: email_body
              )
              Rails.logger.info("Email sent to: #{email}")
            rescue StandardError => e
              Rails.logger.error("Failed to send email to #{email}: #{e.message}")
            end
          else
            Rails.logger.warn("No user found with email: #{email}")
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

And my plugin structure is like this:
/var/discourse/plugins/auto-email/
├── README.rb
├── data/
├── mamapedia_users_data_01.csv
├── lib/
├── plugin.rb

However, when I restart or rebuild the app I can not see the new plugin in the admin panel. I don’t see any errors in the logs.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to do something else?

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

I’d start at Developing Discourse Plugins - Part 1 - Create a basic plugin.

[Xavier_Garzon]

I tried that one, is very simple. But unfortunately is not working for me.

I tested the same solution in two different apps. Here is the plugin.rb file I used:

# name: auto-email
# about: A super simple plugin to demonstrate how plugins work
# version: 0.0.1
# authors: Xavier Garzon

I also checked my plugins folder in the container (/var/www/discourse/plugins) and it seems that my plugin is not being copied. Maybe that is part of the problem.

For this second test, I also tried:

./launcher rebuild app --clean

and

./launcher restart app

This is the version I’m running:
3.4.0.beta4-dev
(9f41ce7fce)

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

Did you put your plugin in a github repo?

You can’t just stick a plugin.rb in /lib it has to be in plugins, and in production, you need to add it via github as described in Install plugins on a self-hosted site

@Xavier_Garzon

I also checked my plugins folder in the container (/var/www/discourse/plugins) and it seems that my plugin is not being copied. Maybe that is part of the problem.

Yes. If it’s not there, it’s not there.

You really want to read all of those plugin topics. You also want to do your testing in a development environment.