In order for Stremio to display add-on data, the add-on must first supply the resource for it. There are different types of resources, the only mandatory resource is the manifest, add-ons can choose to supply either one or more of the other available resources.
| Resource | Handler | Response | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| manifest | - | manifest | The add-on description and capabilities. |
| catalog | defineCatalogHandler | meta | Summarized collection of meta items. Catalogs are displayed on the Stremio's Board, Discover and Search. |
| metadata | defineMetaHandler | meta | Detailed description of meta item. This description is displayed when the user selects an item form the catalog. |
| streams | defineStreamHandler | stream | Tells Stremio how to obtain the media content. It may be torrent info hash, HTTP URL, etc |
| subtitles | defineSubtitlesHandler | subtitles | Subtitles resource for the chosen media. |
The structure of those resources in Stremio is as follows:
+-- Catalog
+-- Meta Item
+-- Videos (part of Meta Item)
+---+-- Streams
+---+---+-- Subtitles
When the user opens the Discover/Board section, catalogs from all installed add-ons are loaded. Catalog responses include meta preview objects, which are just stripped down versions of the full meta object.
Once a user clicks on a specific item, the Detail page is opened, and the full meta object is loaded by requesting all relevant (see filtering) add-ons.
Then, the user will pick a video (e.g. episode) from that meta object, which will trigger loading streams from all relevant add-ons. If the meta item has only one video object (as is the case with movies), streams will be requested as soon as the Detail page is opened.
We determine whether an add-on is relevant by comparing the request against it's manifest.
For catalogs, we usually request all catalogs from all add-ons, that are compatible with the extra properties that we're looking for. For example, to load the Board, we'd load all catalogs that have no extra properties that are required. But, if we're loading Search, we'd load all catalogs that have search as a supported property in their extra definition.
For other requests (meta, stream, subtitles), we apply the types and the optional idPrefixes filters (which can also be defined per-resource). For example, for /meta/movie/tt1254207, we'd try to load meta from all add-ons that have "movie" in manifest.types (or have { name: "meta", types: ["movie'] } in manifest.resources). If manifest.idPrefixes is defined, ["tt"] will match this request, but something different (e.g. ["yt_id:"]) won't. This helps you ensure your add-on does not get irrelevant requests.
For the full spec, see manifest - filtering properties.