A few questions about Great Expectations 1.X

[xcRRRRt]

1. Plugin folder
   I can see the plugin folder exists in the gx directory, but I've searched through the 1.X documentation thoroughly and still can't figure out what it's used for.

2. Custom Expectations
   In the 0.X documentation, there is extensive content about custom Expectations. But in the 1.X documentation, there are only a few simple examples. The built-in Expectations don't fully meet my needs.
   I'm really wondering: is the custom Expectation feature going to be deprecated, or is it simply not yet fully implemented?

3. API Documentation
   The API docs are missing many commonly used features, such as get_context, RunIdentifier, etc.
   My point is that, just looking at the documentation, the 1.X version seems to have far fewer features than 0.X — for example, render, execution_engine, validator.
   Also, the search functionality on the documentation site is currently broken/unavailable.

[joshua-stauffer]

hey @xcRRRRt , thanks for the questions.

1. Plugins
   Historically, the plugins dir allows users to extend GX with custom code. The plugins dir is added to sys.path, and python classes defined there can be referenced in great_expectations.yml. It hasn't been deprecated, but v1 GX doesn't have a first class use for it. The two main components open for extension -- expectations and actions -- don't require it. It may be utilized again in the future; for now, it's primarily in the project dir for backwards compatibility.

2. Custom Expectations
   Custom Expectations are on the roadmap and are coming back soon 🎉

3. API Documentation
   There are a couple of things going on here; let me address them individually.

   • Thanks for pointing out that the API docs are missing get_context - I'll look into that. RunIdentifier, on the other hand, is documented here.
   • The public API surface for v1 is significantly smaller, by design, but not because significant functionality was removed. The three components you mentioned -- render method on expectations, execution engines, and validators -- are internal components that users aren't expected to directly interact with.
   • Thanks for flagging that docs search is down; it should be back up shortly.

Hope that helps!

[xcRRRRt]

Thanks for the detailed responses! Really appreciate the clarification on these points. Looking forward to the custom Expectations feature coming back in 1.X 🙌