I defined an initialize method in my plugin and now it doesn’t work properly anymore

Cinch requires plugins to set certain states for them to work properly. This is done by the initialize method of the Plugin module. If you define your own initializer, make sure to accept an arbitrary number of arguments (*args) and to call super as soon as possible.

Example

class MyPlugin
  include Cinch::Plugin

  def initialize(*args)
    super
    my own stuff here
  end
end

I am trying to use plugin options, but Ruby says it cannot find the config method

A common mistake is to try and use plugin options on class level, for example to manipulate matches. This cannot work because the class itself is not connected to any bot. Plugin options only work in instance methods of plugins.

The following is not possible:

class MyPlugin
  include Cinch::Plugin

  match(config[:pattern])
  def execute(m)
    # ...
  end
end

My handlers won’t run, even though the Regexp matches.

Cinch plugins have a default prefix (/^!/). This allows for flexible prefixes across the whole bot. The default prefix can be changed in Bot#configure:

x = Cinch::Bot.new do
  configure do |c|
    # ...
    c.plugins.prefix = /^%/
  end
end

Alternatively, you can set the prefix for specific plugins only, by calling set:

class MyPlygin
  include Cinch::Plugin

  set :prefix, /^%/
end

You can also choose to not use a prefix for specific matchers:

match /hi/, use_prefix: false