Custom Plugins

Tyk supports the use of custom plugins to extend Tyk functionality.

Plugins can be executed in the following order inside the following areas of the API Request Lifecycle:

• Pre (Request) Plugin
• Authentication Plugin
• Post-Auth (Request) Plugin
• Post (Request) Plugin
• Response Plugin
• Analytics Plugin

Get Started

Get started with your first custom plugin using our tutorial.

Plugin Caveats

• They must run as a single process.
• To apply a custom plugin to an API you must modify the API definition and add the plugin information to one of the areas of the API Request Lifecycle mentioned above.
• They must manage API-specific cases in the same process, only one CoProcess will be managed by a Tyk Instance.

Language Support

Tyk recommends using Go plugins for performance, flexibility, and nativity reasons (All Tyk components are written in Go).

The following languages are supported for custom plugins:

• Golang native plugins - fast, native performance
• JavaScript Plugins (JSVM Middleware) - simple with limited direct API when performance not important (same with Python / Lua)
• Python, Lua, gRPC (Rich Plugins) - ultimate flexibility in the language of implementation, however, there are some performance and management overheads when compared to native GoLang plugins