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HydroSym Plugin API

The HydroSym Plugin API lets you integrate HydroSym with your ERP, PDM, and enterprise systems. Plugins run as native DLLs or child processes and communicate with HydroSym over a simple JSON protocol.

What can a plugin do?

  • Component lookup — enrich every component in the schematic with live ERP data: status, price, stock, lead time.
  • BOM upload — push a structured or file-based BOM to your ERP when the user closes or exports a project.
  • Drawing upload — automatically send generated PDFs and DXFs to your PDM vault.
  • Check-out / check-in — implement locking and versioning for schematic files via your PDM system.
  • Project variables — sync title-block data (customer, revision, drawing number) to and from your ERP or PLM.
  • Custom menus and dialogs — add search dialogs, file browsers, or any other UI that returns data to HydroSym.

Choose your path

  • Build your first plugin

    New to the SDK? Start here for a step-by-step tutorial.

    Getting Started →

  • Look up a method

    Need to know exactly what GetComponentParameters returns? Check the reference.

    API Reference →

  • See how a real integration is built

    Practical end-to-end guides for ERP, PDM, and more.

    Guides →

Architecture at a glance

graph LR
    HS[HydroSym] -->|"Invoke(Method, JSON)"| DLL[Plugin DLL]
    DLL -->|"Callback(JSON)"| HS
    HS -->|"JSON-RPC stdin"| PROC[Plugin Process]
    PROC -->|"JSON-RPC stdout"| HS

HydroSym calls a single entry point with a method name and a JSON payload. The plugin processes the request and returns a JSON response. The same protocol works whether your plugin is a native DLL (loaded in-process) or a separate executable (communicating over stdin/stdout).

See Architecture for details.

API version

The current API version is 1. Plugins must declare "apiVersion": 1 in their GetInfo response.