Who's using index.defineTag?

Yes, currently ABC - Accurate 🖇️ Bi-directional 🖱️ Cursor-level linking system is actively using this streamlined API. It is convenient for dynamically augmenting objects with supplementary attributes and later invoking those values. Specifically, the plugin assigns an additional _.thBlabel property to link objects, which is then formatted in the BackRefs(...) function using template.new[==[​[[${_.ref}|${_.thBlabel}]]​]==].

Historically, add Visitimes Property in another plugin ABC - Adaptive Bread Crumb - #2 by ChenZhu-Xie also employed this API, but its state proved ephemeral, resetting whenever SB was reopened, in contrast to the datastore API’s long-lived, cumulative persistence via IndexedDB. For this reason, I migrated that plugin to the datastore for ‘permanent’ key–value storage. That said, short/lightweight lifecycles can be appropriate, and the earlier plugin benefited from such behavior.

Notably, the API is not inherently transient; the clearing behavior stemmed from the use of local Visitimes = Visitimes or 0, which redefined the value when SB reindexed Lua blocks at launch.

Overall, (1) this API is quite convenient, (2) it is actively used, and (3) in some cases it is indispensable. Naturally, if a better alternative or an improved version emerges, the plugin can be upgraded accordingly without much difficulty.