# Plugins (/docs/enhanced/plugins)

A plugin is a **separate resource that adds its own menus inside vMenu**. It lives in its own folder in your server's resources, and vMenu does not need to know it exists beforehand. When the plugin starts it introduces itself, hands over a description of the menu it would like, and vMenu draws that menu inside itself.

Nothing about a plugin involves editing vMenu. You do not touch the source, you do not rebuild it, and updating vMenu does not undo anything a plugin did.

## What a player sees [#what-a-player-sees]

Plugins show up in two places:

- **A "Plugins" entry on the main menu**, near the bottom. One row per plugin, and underneath each row is that plugin's own menu. It is hidden entirely when a server runs no plugins.
- **A "Plugin Actions" entry inside a player's page in Online Players**, for plugins that add things you can do to another player.

Everything a plugin adds uses vMenu's own permissions system. A missing or locked row means the server owner has not given you that permission. A plugin cannot hand itself permissions, and it cannot give you access to anything of vMenu itself.

## Official plugins [#official-plugins]

These are made and kept up to date alongside vMenu itself. Each one is a real plugin you can install
as it is, and each is also worth reading as an example of how a plugin is put together.

| Plugin | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| [Routing Buckets](https://github.com/TomGrobbe/vMenu.RoutingBucketsPlugin) | Allows you to manage routing buckets on your server. |
| [Theme Picker](https://github.com/TomGrobbe/vMenu.ThemePicker) | Let's each player choose a theme for vMenu themselves, rather than being forced to use the server theme. |
| [Custom Themes](https://github.com/TomGrobbe/vMenu.CustomThemesPlugin) | Allows you to easily add new custom themes to vMenu. |
| [vMenu Time Permissions](https://github.com/RickyB505/vMenu.Time.Permissions) | Gives players more vMenu permissions automatically the longer they play on your server. |
| [Example Plugin](https://github.com/TomGrobbe/vMenu.ExamplePlugin) | Example plugin in C#, Lua, JavaScript and TypeScript. Do not use it on public servers, use it as a template if you want to make your own plugins. |

Every one of them is open source. Most are GPL-3.0-or-later, same as vMenu, and Time Permissions is AGPL-3.0. Each one publishes a ready to drop in zip on its
own releases page.

## Where to go from here [#where-to-go-from-here]

- **Installing one?** See [Installing plugins](./installing.md).
- **Writing one?** See [Making a plugin](https://github.com/TomGrobbe/vMenu/blob/main/docs/src/content/docs./developing.md). Plugins can be written in C#, Lua, JavaScript or TypeScript, and the Example Plugin above is there in all four to copy from.