plugins.enabled (instance setting, default on — plugins predate the
switch; the VS-NfD reference configuration turns it off) makes every
plugin surface answer 404 via a shared guard: Site-Admin
install/list/mode, pond activation and plugin list, the sandbox frame
and asset routes. The dropzone watcher quarantines drops instead of
installing. Deliberately NOT guarded: the authenticated
fallback-metadata route — it serves no plugin code and existing
plugin_block nodes need it to render their declared fallback (an image
fallback degrades to the neutral placeholder while off, because its
bytes live on the disabled asset surface). The editor offers no plugin
blocks because the pond plugin list is one of the 404ing surfaces.
Admin settings panel gets the toggle (i18n de+en) with the documented
api-restart note (in-process settings cache).
Answers "code execution inside the zone?" with one verifiable
off-switch instead of per-plugin trust machinery (#232, ADR 0025).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0168Ph5uBmHm8X28CSVpbpnJ
