PocketBase Admin Plugins (UI Extensions)

PocketBase ≥0.37 (including mothership 0.39.*) ships a rewritten superuser dashboard with an experimental UI extension system. Extensions add pages, header links, collection tabs, field types, modals, and DOM hooks inside the built-in admin SPA.

Status: APIs are experimental and undocumented on pocketbase.io until Stage 2 / v1.0-rc. Expect breaking changes. Source of truth: GitHub discussion #7612.

Architecture (two layers)

pb_hooks/register.pb.js          extensions/my-plugin/
        │                              ├── main.js      ← client entry (required for UI hooks)
        │ onServe → uiExtensions       ├── style.css
        └──────────────────────────────└── …
                    │
                    ▼
        GET /_/extensions/my-plugin/*
        GET /_/extensions.js          ← concatenates all main.js files
                    │
                    ▼
        Admin SPA loads extensions.js → window.app hooks fire

Version gate

Confirm target version before writing extension code. Customer instances must run ≥0.37 to load admin plugins.

Which skill to use

Quick start (JSVM)

1. Directory layout

Place static assets next to hooks (paths are your choice; keep them stable across deploys):

pb_hooks/
  admin_plugins.pb.js
pb_admin_ext/
  hello/
    main.js
    style.css

2. Server registration

// pb_hooks/admin_plugins.pb.js
$app.onServe().bindFunc((e) => {
  e.uiExtensions.push({
    name: 'hello',
    fs: $os.dirFS(`${__hooks}/../pb_admin_ext/hello`),
  })
  e.next()
})

Each name becomes the URL segment /_/extensions/{name}/…. Invalid entries (empty name or missing FS) are skipped.

3. Client entry (main.js)

Runs in the browser (modern JS, async/await OK). Not Goja JSVM rules.

// pb_admin_ext/hello/main.js
app.store.headerLinks.push({
  href: '#/hello',
  icon: 'ri-hand-heart-line',
  label: 'Hello',
})

app.routes.superuserOnly('#/hello', () => {
  return t.div({ className: 'page' }, t.h1(null, 'Hello from an admin plugin'))
})

Open the mothership/instance admin UI, sign in as superuser, click the new header link.

Pre-flight checklist

• Target PocketBase ≥0.37
• Extension name is unique, URL-safe (used in /_/extensions/{name}/)
• main.js exists at FS root if you need client hooks (optional for static-only assets)
• Asset URLs in main.js use /_/extensions/{name}/… paths
• Server hook calls e.next() in onServe
• Client code uses app.pb (superuser SDK) for data, not raw tokens in source
• Event handlers use onclick (lowercase), not onClick
• Async UI state uses store() + arrow children () => …, not plain objects
• Edit/New record actions use app.modals.openRecordUpsert(collection, …) with collection object from app.store.collections
• Third-party widgets (maps, charts) use imperative mount — not Shablon lifecycle hooks
• Realtime: collection subscribe and/or custom topics gated to superuser on server
• Treat APIs as unstable until PocketBase Stage 2 docs ship

Shablon vs plain JS

The admin UI uses Shablon (t.div, t.button, …). Shablon is optional in extensions. Plain DOM works:

const link = document.createElement('link')
link.rel = 'stylesheet'
link.href = '/_/extensions/hello/style.css'
document.head.appendChild(link)

Important: Shablon is not Mithril. oncreate / data-* attrs / ref callbacks are unreliable for plugin routes. Use id + imperative DOM for maps and other third-party widgets. See shablon-reactivity-and-dom.md.

Explore live APIs: open admin UI → DevTools → console.log(app).

Security note

Extensions run with full superuser privileges in the browser and serve from public /_/ routes (CSP applies). Do not ship untrusted third-party extension code. PocketBase will warn about this in future docs (#7612).

PocketHost

Mothership (0.39) and customer instances (≥0.37) differ in deploy path. See pockethost.md.

Typical mothership use case: Live operator dashboard (pb_admin_ext/live/) — platform SSE topics, edge collection subscribe, Leaflet heatmaps. See realtime-and-sse.md and shablon-reactivity-and-dom.md.

Other use cases (backlog): operator stats pages replacing legacy SQL views — view collections + admin plugin charts/tables.

Reference files

Official links

• Extension overview (maintainer): https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/discussions/7612
• JSVM ServeEvent.uiExtensions: https://pocketbase.io/jsvm/interfaces/core.ServeEvent.html
• JSVM UIExtension: https://pocketbase.io/jsvm/interfaces/core.UIExtension.html
• UI source (Shablon): https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/tree/master/ui