Installing plugins
Drop in a plugin bundle, review what it can do, and let DNA install it into your plugins folder.
A plugin adds new nodes, panels, or shaders to DNA. Plugins can run real code on your machine, so installing one always shows you what it is and what it wants access to before anything lands on disk.
Installing a bundle
Open a plugin bundle and DNA shows an install dialog before installing. The dialog lays out the facts so you can decide:
Name and version — what you're about to install.
What it can do — the capabilities the plugin is requesting (file access, network, MIDI, and so on). This is the same kind of consent prompt you'll see described in Capabilities & trust.
Signature status — whether the bundle is signed, and by whom.
If you accept, DNA unpacks the bundle into your plugins folder and the new nodes become available. If you cancel, nothing is written.
A plugin only becomes active after it's installed into a scanned folder and DNA loads it. Bundles you've merely opened but not accepted leave no trace.
Signature status
Every bundle falls into one of three states in the install dialog:
Trusted — signed by a publisher you already trust. The publisher's name is shown.
Untrusted — signed, but by a publisher DNA doesn't recognise yet. The signature is valid; you just haven't vouched for who made it.
Unsigned — no signature at all. There's no way to confirm who built it.
Unsigned and untrusted plugins can do anything the capability list allows. Only install bundles from a source you trust, and read the capability list carefully before accepting.
Where plugins live
When you accept, DNA extracts the bundle into your personal plugins folder:
~/.dna/plugins/<plugin-name>/This folder is scanned every time DNA starts, so an installed plugin is back the next time you open the app. The first time you launch DNA it may also offer to install the plugins that ship with the app.
You can drop an already-unpacked plugin folder straight into ~/.dna/plugins/ by hand — it'll be picked up on the next launch. The install dialog is just the friendly path that also checks signatures and safety for you.
DNA refuses to extract bundles that try to write outside their own folder, so a malformed or hostile bundle can't scatter files across your system.
The plugin manager
Open Preferences → Plugins to see and manage everything DNA has loaded.
Plugin Directories lists the folders DNA scans on startup. The default folder is always shown, and you can add your own with Add Directory… or remove ones you've added with Remove.
Adding a folder here means DNA will load native code from it at startup. Folders downloaded from the internet are blocked automatically — if a folder was quarantined by your OS, relocate it or clear the quarantine before adding it.
Installed Plugins lists everything currently loaded, each tagged by type (Rust, Shader, Native, or Python) with its version and how many nodes and panels it adds. Plugins that failed to load appear here too, with the error spelled out so you can tell whether it's a version mismatch, a missing file, or a trust problem.
Audio plugins (planned)
Installing DNA as an audio plugin (VST3 / AU / CLAP) into your DAW's plugin folders is not available yet — the audio-plugin export target is a stub. When it ships, DNA will install into the standard per-OS plugin folders for your host. For now, audio reaches other apps through the live outputs covered in Outputs.