Add support using sandbox functionality in official releases

[mattweber]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Not being able to use sandbox features unless using a snapshot. Snapshots are not published for all release formats, ie. docker images so it is not easy to experiment/test/play with sandbox features.

Describe the solution you'd like
I would like sandbox features built and shipped with official releases and then have some sort of startup option to enable their use. Enabling a sandbox feature would imply the user opting into experimental features and understands it is unsupported.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Building from source.

Additional context
I am excited to try concurrent search plugin

[andrross]

@nknize What do you think about this proposal? Since a user has to explicitly install a plugin, and the fact they are located in a "sandbox" directory, this seems like a reasonable process akin to enabling a feature flag and would greatly reduce the friction for users experimenting with a sandbox plugin.

then have some sort of startup option to enable their use

@mattweber The "option" here is just to install the plugin since sandbox features are inherently plugins. Does that make sense to you or were you thinking about something else?

/cc @reta

[reta]

+1 to @andrross suggestion, alrenatively we could publish sandbox plugin ZIPs into well known repository so people could use it (and make opensearch-plugin tool aware of that).

[peternied]

+1

[saratvemulapalli]

We could definitely publish the zips just like native plugins today which should help install these plugins.
Also a question pops in my mind, how do we want to deal with sandbox/modules?

[andrross]

Also a question pops in my mind, how do we want to deal with sandbox/modules?

@saratvemulapalli Should we just remove it? The concept of the sandbox seems inherently optional to me. I could imagine a feature being promoted from sandbox/plugins to modules, but during its sandbox phase is should probably be an optional plugin.

[reta]

Could we combine it with a feature flag? The sandbox/modules could be bundled (similarly to regular modules) but never picked up by default (if it is feasible to do).

[wbeckler]

Without a way for people to try out the sandboxed modules, there is less chance that we can learn from the experimental usage.