Auto connect Inference Manager to providers from the same publisher

[farshidtz]

Hi,

I would like to request the auto-connection of Inference Manager’s provider plug to the corresponding slot of all snaps from the same publisher. The idea behind is to enable the Inference Manager (this snap) to connect to all inference snaps in order to discover connections details and in some cases the unix socket. Inference Manager provides a management layer and API gateway in front of the connected providers. Currently, Inference Manager auto connects if there is only 1 single provider.

Equivalent manual connections would look like:

sudo snap connect inference:provider gemma4:provider
sudo snap connect inference:provider nomic-embed-text-v1-5:provider
sudo snap connect inference:provider whisper-asr:provider
...

Request details:

• name: inference
• description: Inference Manager provides a management layer for inference snaps.
• snapcraft: inference/snap/snapcraft.yaml at main · canonical/inference · GitHub
• upstream: GitHub - canonical/inference · GitHub
• plugs:
  • provider:
    • interface: content
    • attributes:
      • content: inference-provider
    • request-type: auto-connection (multiple slots, same publisher)
    • reasoning: This snap needs to connect to inference providers to discover connection details and provide a management layer and API gateway.

Thanks

[store-requests-bot]

This request has been added to the queue for review by the @reviewers team.

[elisehdy]

Hello @farshidtz,

Thank you for the detailed request! Based on my understanding, this is a reasonable candidate for one-to-many, plug-to-slot auto-connection and as such, this is a +1 from me for removing the single slot-per-plug auto-connection restriction for the inference-provider content interface, keeping the same publisher auto-connection restriction.

[jslarraz]

Hey folks!

I absolutely agree with @elisehdy. +1 from me for enabling the so-called greedy plug, while keeping the same publisher auto-connection restriction.

Thanks!