Share Modules support in MV3

[kieran.m...@gmail.com]

Hi all, 

We are considering using a shared module for some shared features across several extensions that we provide and are considering using shared modules. 

I have tried using a proof of concept shared module in a manifest v3 extension and it worked. However the issue is we don't see any MV3 documentation for the feature or any mention of its support in MV3. 

The documentation for the feature is here

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv2/shared_modules/

The question is will shared modules be support in MV3 and going forward?

Thanks

Kieran

[hrg...@gmail.com]

I'd also like a confirmation from the Extensions Team that this feature will keep existing in MV3 and future versions of the platform.

In MV3 we are no longer allowed to load third party libraries from external sources, so shared modules is the only way to offload those libraries from the extension package.

Without shared modules we would have to include all third party code in the package, making it unnecessarily big.

[hrg...@gmail.com]

Apparently this feature was removed from the Web Store. Chrome does support shared modules if you load them locally, but the developer dashboard refuses to accept this kind of extensions.

@Simeon, could you please confirm whether shared modules are supposed to work on the Web Store?

If not, why does Chrome still support them?

[Simeon Vincent]

Shared modules are pretty cool. To be honest, I'd love to see this feature get built out, but there's a lot of work ahead of us for that to happen.

As far as I know shared modules was originally implemented for (and is used by) a Chrome OS feature. Unfortunately, shared modules never made their way into the hands of extension developers. To be honest I'm a little surprised (and excited) to hear you were able to create a functional proof of concept. There was a long period where it was implemented in a way that meant only hardcoded shared module IDs could be loaded in Chromium. Similarly, I don't think the Chrome Web Store has ever allowed extension developers to upload shared modules.

So, to directly address your questions: no extension devs should not be able to upload shared modules to the Chrome Web Store (but maybe someday?). Chromium supports them because they're used by the Chromium project itself.

Simeon - @dotproto

Chrome Extensions DevRel

[ilyaigpetrov]

Opening an issue on the monorail for status tracking is welcome.

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[ilyaigpetrov]

Created a ticket: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1290233 -- stars and contributions are welcome.