Plugin API v1.2: design plan (closes #112, #113 design phase)

[thetechjon]

Summary

Design plan for plugin API v1.2 — one coordinated lift that unblocks four features currently stuck on the v1.1 surface ceiling: graph view + backlinks (#71), importer (#73), AI chat / RAG (#70), and properties / tables (#72). Rather than ship any of them in core "temporarily," v1.2 widens the VNode set, adds a fullscreen view surface, and adds four permission-gated capabilities so all four features can land as plugins under the existing Worker isolation model. Closes the design phase of gap issues #112 and #113. No code changes in this PR; implementation follows as PRs A through F per section 12 of the plan.

PR breakdown

PR	Title	Depends on
A	VNode set extension (button, input, list, link, radio, svg, box) + sanitization + tests	none
B	Fullscreen view surface + lifecycle + tests	A
C	vault.read.all capability (getAllNotes, getNote, stream) + permission line + manifest preview	none
D	vault.write capability (createNote, updateNote, deleteNote, createFolder) + permission line + destructive-permission bullet	none
E	fs.openDirectory capability + showDirectoryPicker + webkitdirectory fallback + tests	none
F	vault.events (onVaultChange / onNoteSaved / onActiveNoteChange) + 250ms debounce + subscription cleanup	none

Parallelism: PR A is the foundation. PR B requires A (fullscreen renders VNodes from the new set). PRs C, D, E, F are independent of A, B, and each other and can land in any order. Recommended sequence: land A, merge C / D / E / F in parallel, land B last so its tests can assert against the full VNode set.

New permissions

• vault.read.all — read every note's body. Required for backlinks, graph derivation, AI RAG context, properties aggregation.
• vault.write — create, update, soft-delete notes; create folders. Required for importer, AI summary writes, properties UI. Flagged DESTRUCTIVE in the manifest-preview modal.
• vault.events — subscribe to onVaultChange, onNoteSaved, onActiveNoteChange with 250ms host-side debounce. Required for graph / backlinks / AI cache invalidation.
• fs.open-directory — native directory picker, recursive walk, returns entries. Required for Obsidian / Logseq importers. 50k entries / 500 MiB cap.

All four are revocable from Settings → Plugins; revocation rejects subsequent capability calls with 'Permission was revoked.'.

References

• Plan doc: docs/plugins-v1.2-plan.md (878 lines, 13 sections)
• Closes design phase of Plugin API gap: surfaces needed to host graph view / backlinks plugin (#71) #112 (graph view gap), Plugin API gap: surfaces needed to host importer plugin (#73) #113 (importer gap)
• Unblocks feature implementation for AI: chat / ask-your-notes UI (retrieval foundation already shipped) #70, Graph view (backlinks panel already shipped) #71, Frontmatter / properties UI + lightweight DB/table views (Bases-compatible) #72, Import from Obsidian / Notion / Logseq exports #73
• Builds on docs/plugins-plan.md (v1, LOCKED 2026-06-02) plus the v1.1 file-save / file-open increment

Test plan

• Spot-check the plan doc renders cleanly on GitHub (tables, fenced code blocks, headings)
• Confirm no implementation code changes landed (PR is docs-only)
• CI green (no app changes; format / typecheck unaffected)
• Implementation subagents reference this doc by section number when opening PRs A through F