▸ Agent Skills
5 min read

Using Plugin Permissions

The goal of this exercise is to get a better understanding on how plugin permissions can be enabled or disabled, where they are described and how to use default permissions of plugins.

At the end you will have the ability to find and use permissions of arbitrary plugins and understand how to custom tailor existing permissions. You will have an example Tauri application where a plugin and plugin specific permissions are used.

  1. Create Tauri Application

    Create your Tauri application. In our example we will facilitate create-tauri-app:

    sh <(curl https://create.tauri.app/sh)
    irm https://create.tauri.app/ps | iex
    sh (curl -sSL https://create.tauri.app/sh | psub)
    npm create tauri-app@latest
    yarn create tauri-app
    pnpm create tauri-app
    deno run -A npm:create-tauri-app
    bun create tauri-app
    cargo install create-tauri-app --lockedcargo create-tauri-app

    We will proceed in this step-by-step explanation with pnpm but you can choose another package manager and replace it in the commands accordingly.

    Show solution

    pnpm create tauri-app
    ✔ Project name · plugin-permission-demo✔ Choose which language to use for your frontend · TypeScript / JavaScript - (pnpm, yarn, npm, bun)✔ Choose your package manager · pnpm✔ Choose your UI template · Vanilla✔ Choose your UI flavor · TypeScript
Template created! To get started run:cd plugin-permission-demopnpm installpnpm tauri dev

  2. Add the file-system Plugin to Your Application

    To search for existing plugins you can use multiple resources.

    The most straight forward way would be to check out if your plugin is already in the Plugins section of the documentation and therefore part of Tauri’s maintained plugin set. The Filesystem plugin is part of the Tauri plugin workspace and you can add it to your project by following the instructions.

    If the plugin is part of the community effort you can most likely find it on crates.io when searching for tauri-plugin-<your plugin name>.

    Show solution

    If it is an existing plugin from our workspace you can use the automated way:

    pnpm tauri add fs

    If you have found it on crates.io you need to manually add it as a dependency and modify the Tauri builder to initialize the plugin:

    cargo add tauri-plugin-fs

    Terminal window

    Modify lib.rs to initialize the plugin:

    #[cfg_attr(mobile, tauri::mobile_entry_point)]fn run() {  tauri::Builder::default()    .plugin(tauri_plugin_fs::init())    .run(tauri::generate_context!())    .expect("error while running tauri application");}

    src-tauri/src/lib.rs

  3. Understand the Default Permissions of the fs Plugin

    Each plugin has a default permission set, which contains all permissions and scopes to use the plugin out of the box with a reasonable minimal feature set.

    In the case of official maintained plugins you can find a rendered description in the documentation (eg. fs default).

    In case you are figuring this out for a community plugin you need to check out the source code of the plugin. This should be defined in your-plugin/permissions/default.toml.

    Show solution

    "$schema" = "schemas/schema.json"
[default]description = """# Tauri `fs` default permissions
This configuration file defines the default permissions grantedto the filesystem.
### Granted Permissions
This default permission set enables all read-related commands andallows access to the `$APP` folder and sub directories created in it.The location of the `$APP` folder depends on the operating system,where the application is run.
In general the `$APP` folder needs to be manually createdby the application at runtime, before accessing files or foldersin it is possible.
### Denied Permissions
This default permission set prevents access to critical componentsof the Tauri application by default.On Windows the webview data folder access is denied.
"""permissions = ["read-all", "scope-app-recursive", "deny-default"]

  4. Find the Right Permissions

    This step is all about finding the permissions you need to for your commands to be exposed to the frontend with the minimal access to your system.

    The fs plugin has autogenerated permissions which will disable or enable individual commands and allow or disable global scopes.

    These can be found in the documentation or in the source code of the plugin (fs/permissions/autogenerated).

    Let us assume we want to enable writing to a text file test.txt located in the users $HOME folder.

    For this we would search in the autogenerated permissions for a permission to enable writing to text files like allow-write-text-file and then for a scope which would allow us to access the $HOME/test.txt file.

    We need to add these to our capabilities section in our src-tauri/tauri.conf.json or in a file in the src-tauri/capabilities/ folder. By default there is already a capability in src-tauri/capabilities/default.json we can modify.

    Show solution

    {  "$schema": "../gen/schemas/desktop-schema.json",  "identifier": "default",  "description": "Capability for the main window",  "windows": [    "main"  ],  "permissions": [    "path:default",    "event:default",    "window:default",    "app:default",    "image:default",    "resources:default",    "menu:default",    "tray:default",    "shell:allow-open",    "fs:default",    "fs:allow-write-text-file",  ]}

    src-tauri/capabilities/default.json

    Since there are only autogenerated scopes in the fs plugin to access the full $HOME folder, we need to configure our own scope. This scope should be only enabled for the write-text-file command and should only expose our test.txt file.

    Show solution

       {  "$schema": "../gen/schemas/desktop-schema.json",  "identifier": "default",  "description": "Capability for the main window",  "windows": [    "main"  ],  "permissions": [    "path:default",    "event:default",    "window:default",    "app:default",    "image:default",    "resources:default",    "menu:default",    "tray:default",    "shell:allow-open",    "fs:allow-write-text-file",    {      "identifier": "fs:allow-write-text-file",      "allow": [{ "path": "$HOME/test.txt" }]    },  ]}

    src-tauri/capabilities/default.json

  5. Test Permissions in Practice

    After we have added the necessary permission we want to confirm that our application can access the file and write it’s content.

    Show solution

    We can use this snippet in our application to write to the file:

    import { writeTextFile, BaseDirectory } from '@tauri-apps/plugin-fs';
let greetInputEl: HTMLInputElement | null;
async function write(message: string) {    await writeTextFile('test.txt', message, { baseDir: BaseDirectory.Home });}
window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {  greetInputEl = document.querySelector("#greet-input");  document.querySelector("#greet-form")?.addEventListener("submit", (e) => {    e.preventDefault();    if (!greetInputEl )      return;
    write(greetInputEl.value == "" ? "No input provided": greetInputEl.value);
  });});

    src/main.ts

    Replacing the src/main.ts with this snippet means we do not need to modify the default index.html, when using the plain Vanilla+Typescript app. Entering any input into the input field of the running app will be written to the file on submit.

    Let’s test now in practice:

    pnpm run tauri dev

    After writing into the input and clicking “Submit”, we can check via our terminal emulator or by manually opening the file in your home folder.

    cat $HOME/test.txt

    You should be presented with your input and finished learning about using permissions from plugins in Tauri applications. 🥳

    If you encountered this error:

    [Error] Unhandled Promise Rejection: fs.write_text_file not allowed. Permissions associated with this command: fs:allow-app-write, fs:allow-app-write-recursive, fs:allow-appcache-write, fs:allow-appcache-write-recursive, fs:allow-appconf...(anonymous function) (main.ts:5)

    Terminal window

    Then you very likely did not properly follow the previous instructions.

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Last updated Oct 08, 2026