Services

What Belongs in a Service?

A service is a live, usually non-serializable runtime capability shared through the application context.

Examples include:

• an authenticated archive client;

• a SAMP bridge;

• an image asset resolver;

• a machine-learning recipe registry;

• a resource sampler.

Lazy Services

A service factory can be created only when the service is first requested. This keeps startup fast and avoids opening clients or connections that are never used.

Ownership

Plugin services are installed with the owning plugin ID. When the plugin is disabled, its installed services are removed and initialized service objects are disposed where possible using dispose(), close() or shutdown().

The platform can also register host-owned services, so not every entry in the service registry belongs to a plugin.

Services, Datasets and Artifacts

Use a service for a live capability.

Use a dataset for source or working tabular data.

Use an artifact for a generated result.

Caution

The service registry is not a replacement for global configuration or a generic dictionary of plugin state. Persist small UI state through workspace persistence and keep reusable data products in datasets or artifacts.