Pointcuts

The Data API block ships twelve pointcut interface declarations. Each names a point in an entity’s lifecycle and fixes the method names and argument list an implementation must provide. meta.svc compiles them into its own binary and serves them read-only under the service name data, which is how a product repository discovers what it is allowed to implement. The data.svc binary neither serves nor reads them.

Pointcut, hook, and the schema-declared block

Three things in this block are easy to confuse.

Surface	Lives in	Addressed by	Authored by
Pointcut interface (this page)	The block’s source tree, compiled into and served by meta.svc	Interface name + method name	The block; a product implements against it
Hook	The engine’s execution chain	Phase + priority	Go code compiled into the binary
Entity pointcuts: block	A product’s entity YAML	Canonical method name + order:	The schema author

A hook is a Go implementation on the request pipeline — the access gate, computed fields, entity validation, the stateflow guard. Hooks are chosen and ordered by the process that builds the engine; you cannot add one from YAML.

A pointcut interface is the opposite: the block publishes a contract and the implementation lives outside the binary, in a product repository, written in a script language. Nothing about it is negotiated at build time.

The pointcuts: block on an entity is a third thing that shares the word. It is dispatched in process by the hook chain, uses its own canonical method vocabulary, and is declared inside the entity YAML rather than in a separate plugin folder. The interface catalogue below does not apply to it.

These interfaces are published, but no deployed service executes an implementation

meta.svc serves the twelve templates and serves a product’s plugin declarations back to any caller that asks. The deployed data.svc binary registers no plugin engine: no code path in it resolves a plugin, and no code path calls ValidateBeforeCreate, ExecuteOnCreateSuccess, or any other method named here. Declaring a plugin has no effect on a request today.

For interception that runs on every request now, use the entity’s pointcuts: block, its triggers:, or a scripted endpoint — those dispatchers are wired into the hook chain the service builds at boot.

Where the templates are served from

The interfaces are compiled into meta.svc as an embedded filesystem and mounted at the virtual path /embed/pointcuts, one YAML file per interface. meta.svc registers that filesystem under the service name data and maps the type pointcut to that path; pointcut is the only capability the Data API block publishes this way.

Method	Path	Returns
GET	/service/data/type/pointcut	All twelve templates, raw, keyed by file path
GET	/service/data/type/pointcut?format=yaml	The same set, parsed into objects
GET	/service/data/type/pointcut?array=true	The same set as a list instead of a map

The response envelope is {"data": …}. Every entry carries two injected keys: _path, the full virtual path, and _name, the file name. In the raw form those two are appended to the file body as extra YAML lines rather than added to a parsed object.

curl -H "X-Api-Key: $API_KEY" "https://meta.example.com/service/data/type/pointcut?format=yaml"

See the meta.svc for authentication, ETags and the version / versionType parameters that apply to every read route.

The twelve interfaces

File	Interface	Methods	Covers
on_create.yaml	OnCreate	4	Row create
on_update.yaml	OnUpdate	4	Row update
on_delete.yaml	OnDelete	3	Row delete
on_read.yaml	OnRead	5	Row read, plus mask and decrypt passes
on_child_create.yaml	OnChildCreate	4	Child-row mirror of OnCreate
on_child_update.yaml	OnChildUpdate	4	Child-row mirror of OnUpdate
on_child_delete.yaml	OnChildDelete	3	Child-row mirror of OnDelete
on_child_read.yaml	OnChildRead	5	Child-row mirror of OnRead
on_import.yaml	OnImport	3	Bulk import, including the raw-bytes parse step
on_export.yaml	OnExport	4	Export
on_entity_field_create.yaml	OnEntityFieldCreate	1	Field tokenization on create
on_entity_field_update.yaml	OnEntityFieldUpdate	1	Field tokenization on update

Method catalogue

Forty-one methods across the twelve interfaces. Names are case-sensitive.

Interface	Method	Signature
OnCreate	ValidateBeforeCreate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnCreate	AugmentBeforeCreate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnCreate	ExecuteOnCreateSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnCreate	ExecuteOnCreateFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnUpdate	ValidateBeforeUpdate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnUpdate	AugmentBeforeUpdate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnUpdate	ExecuteOnUpdateSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnUpdate	ExecuteOnUpdateFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnDelete	ExecuteBeforeDelete	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnDelete	ExecuteOnDeleteSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnDelete	ExecuteOnDeleteFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnRead	ExecuteBeforeRead	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnRead	MaskAfterRead	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnRead	DecryptAfterRead	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnRead	ExecuteOnReadSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnRead	ExecuteOnReadFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildCreate	ValidateBeforeChildCreate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildCreate	AugmentBeforeChildCreate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildCreate	ExecuteOnChildCreateSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildCreate	ExecuteOnChildCreateFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildUpdate	ValidateBeforeChildUpdate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildUpdate	AugmentBeforeChildUpdate	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildUpdate	ExecuteOnChildUpdateSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildUpdate	ExecuteOnChildUpdateFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildDelete	ExecuteBeforeChildDelete	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildDelete	ExecuteOnChildDeleteSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildDelete	ExecuteOnChildDeleteFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildRead	ExecuteBeforeChildRead	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildRead	MaskAfterChildRead	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildRead	DecryptAfterChildRead	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnChildRead	ExecuteOnChildReadSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnChildRead	ExecuteOnChildReadFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnImport	ParseBeforeImport	(ctx, type, payload, params) — payload is bytes
OnImport	ExecuteOnImportSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnImport	ExecuteOnImportFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnExport	ValidateBeforeExport	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnExport	AugmentBeforeExport	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnExport	ExecuteOnExportSuccess	(ctx, payload, params)
OnExport	ExecuteOnExportFailure	(ctx, payload, params)
OnEntityFieldCreate	Tokenize	(ctx, entity, payload, params)
OnEntityFieldUpdate	Tokenize	(ctx, entity, payload, params)

Arguments

Argument	Declared type	Present on
ctx	map of string	Every method
entity	string	Every method except Execute*Success / Execute*Failure and ParseBeforeImport
type	string	ParseBeforeImport only, in the slot entity occupies elsewhere
payload	map of any — bytes on ParseBeforeImport	Every method
params	array of any	Every method

The success and failure methods take three arguments, not four

Execute*Success and Execute*Failure drop entity; their signature is (ctx, payload, params). Writing them with four parameters shifts payload into the entity slot.

Template file format

Each file declares one interface name and its method list. Arguments are ordered, and each carries a type with an optional subtype for the element or value type. The shipped Data API templates use four types: map (with subtype string or any), string, array (subtype any) and bytes.

---
name: OnCreate
methods:
- name: ValidateBeforeCreate
  arguments:
  - name: ctx
    type: map
    subtype: string
  - name: entity
    type: string
  - name: payload
    type: map
    subtype: any
  - name: params
    type: array
    subtype: any
- name: ExecuteOnCreateSuccess
  arguments:
  - name: ctx
    type: map
    subtype: string
  - name: payload
    type: map
    subtype: any
  - name: params
    type: array
    subtype: any

The route is read-only, and a product cannot add an interface or a method — the catalogue is fixed by the meta.svc build that serves it. The one exception is operator-side: a repository named data in meta.svc’s services: configuration is loaded before the embedded set and takes its place entirely.

Implementing one in a product

A product implements a pointcut as a plugin under data/plugins/. The directory scan is one level deep and the manifest file name is fixed: data/plugins/<name>/plugin.yaml. Nested directories and any other file name are ignored.

data/
  plugins/
    dummyplugin/
      plugin.yaml
      plugin.js

---
name: dummyplugin
meta:
  entities:
  - product
  - bug
service: data
active: true
category:
- compute
implements:
- name: OnCreate
  priority: 100
  methods:
  - ExecuteOnCreateSuccess
  - ExecuteOnCreateFailure
language: js
capabilities:
- network:
  - public
- memory:
    max: 5M
tags:
- compute
- operations
arguments:
- name: params
  value: ~
config:
  type: stdout

The script file exports one function per declared method, with the signature the template fixes:

function ExecuteOnCreateSuccess(ctx, payload, params) {
  console.log("dummyplugin: create succeeded", ctx, payload, params);
}

function ExecuteOnCreateFailure(ctx, payload, params) {
  console.log("dummyplugin: create failed", ctx, payload, params);
}

Declaration keys

meta.svc reads exactly two keys and injects a third. Everything else is returned verbatim to whichever block consumes the declaration.

Key	Read by meta.svc	Meaning
service	Yes — the filter	Which block the plugin targets. Compared case-insensitively; anything other than data is excluded from the Data API listing
name	Yes — the map key	Plugin name. The listing is keyed by it, so it is required
path	Injected	The plugin’s directory. Added to the parsed object only — the default raw form returns the file text unchanged
implements[].name	No	Interface name from the catalogue above
implements[].methods	No	The subset of that interface’s methods this plugin provides
implements[].priority	No	Ordering among plugins bound to the same interface
language	No	Script runtime. The shipped examples use js
meta.entities	No	Entities the plugin is scoped to
active	No	Author’s enable flag
category, tags	No	Catalogue labels
capabilities	No	Declared resource and network needs
arguments	No	Declared argument defaults, merged with call arguments by the consuming block
config	No	Free-form plugin configuration

Reading a product’s declarations

Method	Path	Returns
GET	/product/{id}/service/data/type/plugin	Every plugin.yaml under data/plugins/ whose service: is data, keyed by name

Add ?format=yaml for parsed objects and ?array=true for a list, the same as the template routes.

Related

Concern	Page
Where product definitions live on disk	Schema sources
The hook chain, and the entity pointcuts: block that runs on it	Hooks and the execution pipeline
Guards that do run on every request	Access rules
Masking and classification, and what is enforced	Field protection
Serving, versioning and authenticating definitions	meta.svc
Endpoint-level HTTP reference	Data API reference