Plugin architecture for ScanCode

This project’s purpose is to create a decoupled plugin architecture for scancode such that it can handle plugins at different stages of a scan and can be coupled at runtime.

These stages would be

• Pre - scan: Before starting the scan E.g Plugins to handle extraction of different archive types or instructions on how to handle certain types of files.
• Scan proper: During the scan E.g Plugins to add more options for the scan, maybe to ignore certain files or add some command line arguments, create new scans (alternative or as a dependency for further scanning), etc.
• Post - scan: After the scan E.g Plugins for output deduction, formatting or converting output to other formats (such as json, spdx, csv, xml, etc.)

Upside of building a pluggable system would be to allow easier additions and rare modifications to code, without having to really fiddle around with core codebase. This will also allow a level of abstraction between the plugins and scancode so that any erroneous plugin would not affect the functioning of scancode as a whole.