---
title: "Plugins"
description: "terraform-docs plugin development guide"
menu:
  docs:
    parent: "developer-guide"
weight: 310
toc: false
---

Generated output can be heavily customized with [`content`], but if using that
is not enough for your use-case, you can write your own plugin.

In order to install a plugin the following steps are needed:

- download the plugin and place it in `~/.tfdocs.d/plugins` (or `./.tfdocs.d/plugins`)
- make sure the plugin file name is `tfdocs-format-<NAME>`
- modify [`formatter`] of `.terraform-docs.yml` file to be `<NAME>`

**Important notes:**

- if the plugin file name is different than the example above, terraform-docs won't
be able to to pick it up nor register it properly
- you can only use plugin thorough `.terraform-docs.yml` file and it cannot be used
with CLI arguments

To create a new plugin create a new repository called `tfdocs-format-<NAME>` with
following `main.go`:

```go
package main

import (
    _ "embed" //nolint

    "github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/plugin"
    "github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/print"
    "github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/template"
    "github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/terraform"
)

func main() {
    plugin.Serve(&plugin.ServeOpts{
        Name:    "<NAME>",
        Version: "0.1.0",
        Printer: printerFunc,
    })
}

//go:embed sections.tmpl
var tplCustom []byte

// printerFunc the function being executed by the plugin client.
func printerFunc(config *print.Config, module *terraform.Module) (string, error) {
    tpl := template.New(config,
        &template.Item{Name: "custom", Text: string(tplCustom)},
    )

    rendered, err := tpl.Render("custom", module)
    if err != nil {
        return "", err
    }

    return rendered, nil
}
```

Please refer to [tfdocs-format-template] for more details. You can create a new
repository from it by clicking on `Use this template` button.

[`content`]: {{< ref "content" >}}
[`formatter`]: {{< ref "formatter" >}}
[tfdocs-format-template]: https://github.com/terraform-docs/tfdocs-format-template