# 🔌 External Libraries

**URL:** https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899
**Category:** Plugs and Libraries
**Created:** [March 2, 2025, 12:14pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899 "2025-03-02T12:14:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2025, 12:14pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/1 "2025-03-02T12:14:51Z")

</div>

## External Libraries Plug for SilverBullet

Hello SilverBullet Community! 👋

I’m excited to share a new plugin I’ve developed for SilverBullet. This plugin, **External Libraries** , allows you to seamlessly load pages from external sources like GitHub.

### Key Features

- **Easy Distribution** : Effortlessly share templates, themes, scripts, and commands.
- **Integration with GitHub** : Load content directly from GitHub repositories. Content can also be previewed by hosting the shared markdown files on GitHub Pages.
- **Enhanced Collaboration** : Simplify the process of distributing and using shared resources.

### Why External Libraries?

The Library functionality in SilverBullet allows you to share content between SilverBullet instances. External Libraries allows you to use any platform where you can host files to share content.

Platform flexibility brings the following benefits:

- **Collaboration** : This makes it easier to share community content such as themes, scripts and templates via a platform like GitHub, where others can also contribute.
- **Cost** : No need to buy/rent a server and storage to share your content publicly.
- **Security** : By using a third-party platform, you don’t need to worry about securing and maintaining your own server and network. You can safely keep your notes in a private SilverBullet instance.

### Installation

Add the following plug to your `PLUGS` page:

```yaml
- ghr:janssen-io/silverbullet-external-libraries

```

### Loading an external library

Add the following block to your `SETTINGS` page:

```yaml
externalLibraries:
- "gh://<user>/<repo>/Library/<library>"
- "https://example.com/path/to/Library/Name"

```

> ℹ Requirements
> 
> 1. the external library must still be a subdirectory inside a directory called `Library`
> 2. the parent directory (e.g., `/Root/` in `/Root/Library/MyTheme`) must contain file named `index.json` that contains a list of all files.

#### Example

To load the `LogseqDarkTheme` from the repository [janssen-io/silverbullet-libraries](https://github.com/janssen-io/silverbullet-libraries), you can use the following block:

```yaml
externalLibraries:
- "gh://janssen-io/silverbullet-libraries/Library/LogseqDarkTheme"

```

As you can see the repository also contains an `index.json` in the [root of the repository](https://github.com/janssen-io/silverbullet-libraries/blob/main/index.json).

### Learn More

For more details and installation instructions, check out the GitHub repository: [GitHub - janssen-io/silverbullet-external-libraries](https://github.com/janssen-io/silverbullet-external-libraries).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2025, 10:18pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/2 "2025-03-03T22:18:28Z")

</div>

From now on I will publish versions via GitHub releases, so you can install the more stable version via:

```yaml
ghr:janssen-io/silverbullet-external-libraries

```

The old install ‘link’ will still work, but it will download the development version. This version is less thoroughly tested and might be less stable.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/zef/32/7_2.png) [@zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/zef)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/3 "2025-03-05T19:31:21Z")

</div>

Wow, this is really cool. Love the idea. I do wonder if this shouldn’t simply be merged into the core of SB though. To support both the federated libraries as before, as well as your more generic system.

What do you think?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/zef/32/7_2.png) [@zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/zef)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/4 "2025-03-05T19:35:14Z")

</div>

What’s a bit of a shame usability wise, is that you still need to create an `index.json` file. Yes of course, you can automate the creation of this, but I’m wondering if it’s not somehow possible to leverage (some) Github API (for the GH resolver) that pulls a file list that way rather than depending on a static file in the repo. This may not be an option in general case (every resolver), but perhaps for some.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/5 "2025-03-05T21:32:34Z")

</div>

> [Should this be merged?]

It would be a great addition to the existing plug or as an extra ‘default’ plug, I think. 🙂 Might be good to make it slightly more consistent with the other default plugs. For example, I use `gh://`, whereas the `plugs` plug uses `github:`.

* * *

> [Use the GitHub API instead of index.json]

I hadn’t even considered using the Github API as an alternative to the `index.json`. Seems pretty easy to use:

Example of my library repo: [https://api.github.com/repos/janssen-io/silverbullet-libraries/git/trees/main?recursive=1](https://api.github.com/repos/janssen-io/silverbullet-libraries/git/trees/main?recursive=1)

Might be worth an update soon. Other resolvers can indeed implement whatever solution is best for them. 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2025, 9:38am UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/6 "2025-03-18T09:38:41Z")

</div>

The ‘edge’ version of this plug has been updated to be compatible with the current ‘edge’ version of SilverBullet. Thanks, @zeus-web, for bringing up the issue!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/zef/32/7_2.png) [@zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/zef)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/7 "2025-03-18T15:46:55Z")

</div>

Head’s up: in time (not sure how soon) I will remove the `libraries` functionality as it exists today (as it relies on federation, which I’ll also remove ([Who's using federation? - #10 by zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/whos-using-federation/1980/10))).

With your permission @janssen-io I’d then move to basically including what you built here, but baked into SB core as the new “blessed” way to distribute libraries, because I think it’s better than the old way (which was pretty hard to use, unless you deployed a public read-only SB instance).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2025, 4:08pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/8 "2025-03-18T16:08:35Z")

</div>

That would be great, Zef! I can whip up a PR somewhere later this week hopefully, if you’d like.

If you think it’s better to add it yourself, then feel free to as well. I’m just looking for ways to contribute as I really love SilverBullet. 🙂

* * *

One thing to keep in mind:  
Currently libraries do remove the entire folder first and then download the new ones. Mine just overwrites documents, but doesn’t delete ones that aren’t present anymore. So we might want to implement that still.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/zef/32/7_2.png) [@zef](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/zef)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/9 "2025-03-18T17:05:44Z")

</div>

Yeah, I’m happy to take this. May rethink some details here.

Won’t do this just yet, there’s a couple of things I need to tackle and figure out first.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![nickb](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/nickb/32/1239_2.png) [@nickb](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/nickb)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/10 "2025-03-23T20:11:26Z")

</div>

Hi @janssen-io how do I access the ‘edge’ version?

Nick

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/11 "2025-03-23T20:39:33Z")

</div>

You can use the following “link” to install it:

`github:janssen-io/silverbullet-external-libraries/external-libraries.plug.js`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![zeus-web](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/zeus-web/32/571_2.png) [@zeus-web](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/zeus-web)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2025, 8:09am UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/12 "2025-03-24T08:09:25Z")

</div>

Zef also wrote a more detailed post about “living on the edge” 🙂

> [@Living on the edge (builds)](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/living-on-the-edge-builds/27):
>
> If you’re a true SilverBullet enthusiast, just upgrading to the latest and greatest release may just not be edgy enough. Maybe you want to truly live on the bleeding edge, and always run the latest commit to the [SilverBullet repo](https://github.com/silverbulletmd/silverbullet). I know I do. And I do. Every time new code is pushed to the main development branch, a new Docker image is released to zefhemel/silverbullet:edge within minutes, as well as a Deno build to [https://edge.silverbullet.md/silverbullet.js](https://edge.silverbullet.md/silverbullet.js). How to set this up First of all…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![nickb](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/nickb/32/1239_2.png) [@nickb](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/nickb)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2025, 8:39am UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/13 "2025-03-24T08:39:01Z")

</div>

Sure, but there’s no edge branch of external libraries plug to pull, and if there was what syntax would pull it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2025, 8:46am UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/14 "2025-03-24T08:46:53Z")

</div>

The main branch (`github:` syntax) of the plug is compatible with Edge.

The releases (`ghr:` syntax) is compatible with 0.10.4/stable. 🙂

If there are issues because of changes on Edge, I will fix them as soon as possible on the main branch.

Once a new version of SilverBullet is released as stable, I will also create a new release of the plug. (But hopefully once v2 is officially released, it will be part of SilverBullet itself)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/janssen-io/32/1155_2.png) [@janssen-io](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/janssen-io)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/15 "2025-10-23T12:31:35Z")

</div>

⚠ This plug has been replaced by the built-in [Importers](https://silverbullet.md/Library/Std/Infrastructure/Import) and [the GitHub Importer](https://silverbullet.md/Library/Std/Infrastructure/Github).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Mr.Red](https://community.silverbullet.md/user_avatar/community.silverbullet.md/mr.red/32/821_2.png) [@Mr.Red](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/Mr.Red)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2025, 12:46pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/external-libraries/1899/16 "2025-10-23T12:46:41Z")

</div>

As en extension to the import function, I also built an `Update Siverbullet-Libraries` - command to easily update imported libraries(Github or RawMarkdown).  
It`s still work in progress, but main features already tested and work. If it has been tested by multiple people with positive feedback, we could also integrate it as a built in functionality, but until then here is the library:

> <https://github.com/Mr-xRed/silverbullet-libraries/blob/main/UpdateSilverbulletLibraries.md>

…and yes, it can also update itself  
😉