I followed the official Discourse guide for installing plugins on a self-hosted site ( official tutorial ), but it dates back to 2014, and I’m quite sure much of the information is now outdated. I also tried some of the more recent, recommended solutions shared in the discussion replies, such as moun…

Is there a way to download the plugin files directly to the server beforehand, so that during the Discourse bootstrap it doesn’t need to fetch them again from GitHub?

[afbeelding] Install plugins on a self-hosted site With the OAuth token, you can install your plugin in the same way as a public repo, and you don’t need to create a SSH key. This is still the valid approach I use it all the time.

[afbeelding] copymonopoly: Is there a way to download the plugin files directly to the server beforehand You can probably clone the files directly into /plugins and then run the necessary migrations, but then you may not receive updates for the plugins.

Thanks! But the reason I prefer using SSH is because OAuth tokens don’t allow separating read and write permissions — they always come with more access than necessary. With SSH, I can generate a read-only deploy key, which is more secure and aligns better with the principle of least privilege.

[afbeelding] Nate Dhaliwal: You can probably clone the files directly into /plugins and then run the necessary migrations, but then you may not receive updates for the plugins. Thanks for the suggestion! I actually tried cloning the plugin directly into /var/www/discourse/plugins, but it did…

IIRC there are problems if you clone directly (I think this ), that’s why using the tokens to clone are the recommended way. But I think you may want to give this a shot, if you want to use SSH keys: [afbeelding] Install plugins on a self-hosted site We strongly advise you to use OAuth tokens fo…

Thanks, but I’ve already tried the method described in the official 2014 guide you linked — and I can confirm that it no longer works for accessing private repositories via SSH keys during bootstrap. I also tried the newer approach mentioned in one of the replies (mounting the SSH key into the cont…

You could just clone it locally and either mount it in the plugins directory or cp it from a temporary mount into the plugins directory. You used to be able to get a github url that had credentials embedded in the url. I’ve done that before.

Hoe Discourse Plugins te Installeren Gehost in Private Repositories met SSH-sleutel?

Ondersteuning Installatie

merefield (Robert) 25 juli 2025 om 17:54 3

This is still the valid approach

I use it all the time.

Topic		Antwoorden	Weergaven
Private repo on Github Development	1	1673	9 september 2019
Install plugins on a self-hosted site Self-Hosting how-to	43	260249	10 maart 2026
Installing Plugins with Git Support	8	1308	4 mei 2020
Install plugin from private Git repository? Development	5	1440	11 maart 2019
Install plugins without direct access to github Support unsupported-install	13	1302	17 april 2019

Hoe Discourse Plugins te Installeren Gehost in Private Repositories met SSH-sleutel?

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