# Working with external plugins

Quantum Package has very few executables out of the box. Most of the time, external plugins need to be downloaded and installed in the `$QP_ROOT/plugins` directory.

Plugins are usually hosted in external repositories. To download a plugin, the remote repository needs to be downloaded, and the plugins of the repository can be selected for installation.

To download an external repository of plugins, run the following command:

    qp_plugins download http://somewhere/over/the/rainbow/ext_repo

This downloads a copy of the repository of external plugins `ext_repo` in `$QP_ROOT/plugins`.

The list of available uninstalled plugins can be seen using:

    qp_plugins list -u

Now, the specific plugin `ext_module` contained in the repository `ext_repo` can be installed using:

    qp_plugins install ext_module

The module is now accessible via a symbolic link in `$QP_ROOT/src`, and can be compiled as any module, running Ninja.

To remove the module, run

    qp_plugins uninstall ext_module

See also

For a more detailed explanation and an example, see qp_plugins.