4. Choosing a language
Choosing a language
When creating a plugin, you need to consider in advance the types of runtimes you need to support.
If you use, say Java, that means any user who uses your plugin needs to have a JDK installed on their machines and CI servers, as well as anything that verifies a Pact file created using that plugin even if the provider is written in a different language.
We suggest you choose a language that can be compiled and distributed as a single executable to multiple languages, such as Rust, Golang or .NET.
In this tutorial we will use Golang, which can be cross compliled to common targets.
Recommended targets
We recommend you provide first class support for the following OS/Architecture targets, and provide a similar compatibility table in your Plugin docs:
| OS | Architecture | Supported |
|---|---|---|
| OSX | x86_64 | ✅ |
| OSX | aarch64 (arm) | ✅ |
| Linux | x86_64 | ✅ |
| Linux | aarch64 (arm) | ✅ |
| Windows | x86_64 | ✅ |
| Windows | aarch64 (arm) | ✅ |
GitHub provides support for compiling for such targets.