An APX Interface Should Ask the Daemon, Not a Plugin

A new APX interface should not learn how to manage plugins, but should instead ask the daemon to handle this task. This is important because it helps maintain consistent agent behavior as APX gains new features and functionalities. APC is the portable context layer, which can include AGENTS.md, .apc/agents/, skills, and other rules crucial to the project.

APX is the daily-use runtime and tooling layer, reading the context, running agent work locally, and exposing it through various interfaces like CLI, web panel, and desktop client. The core of APX contains shared logic, the host layer has long-running processes, and the interfaces layer provides surfaces for users to interact with the system.

The daemon, which lives in the host layer, is the only layer that communicates with plugins over HTTP. This separation ensures that each surface communicates with the daemon through a single API, reducing the chances of drift and inconsistency in plugin lifecycle management. By assigning plugin lifecycle management to the daemon, APX ensures that the runtime state is kept local and that each interface has a simpler job of collecting human actions, calling the daemon, and rendering the response.

A practical example of this design is adding a button to an APX panel that connects an integration. Instead of importing a plugin package and configuring it in the browser code, the panel sends a request to the daemon, which then checks the runtime configuration, performs the necessary lifecycle work, records the local result, and returns a status.

This approach allows other interfaces, such as CLI and web panel, to call the daemon endpoint or command path, providing a consistent experience across different interfaces. Furthermore, failures can be traced more easily, as the daemon is the clear owner of the plugin contact and runtime lifecycle. APC, on the other hand, is responsible for preserving project context, not managing plugin lifecycle.

By keeping plugin ownership in the daemon, APX ensures that every interface can use the same runtime interpretation of the project while keeping machine-specific operational state separate from APC. This separation ultimately leads to more reliable and maintainable systems.