Service add-ons

Service add-ons will be automatically started when a user profile logs in or on Kodi startup, and stopped when the user profile logs out. They must offer the xbmc.service extension point. Here's a typical example of the contents of the addon.xml file such add-ons need to provide:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<addon id="service.example"
       name="Example service"
       version="1.0.0"
       provider-name="">
  <requires>
    <import addon="xbmc.python" version="2.1.0"/>
  </requires>
  <extension point="xbmc.service" library="service.py" />
  <extension point="xbmc.addon.metadata">
    <platform>all</platform>
    <summary lang="en"></summary>
  </extension>
</addon>

If your add-on is meant to be run while Kodi is running, you need to periodically check if Kodi is exiting. The add-on is responsible for terminating when Kodi wants to exit. This can be checked by creating an xbmc.Monitor instance and calling the abortRequested() method. To wait for this event instead, call the waitForAbort() method.

Below is an example service that prints "hello addon!" every 10 seconds until Kodi exits:

import time
import xbmc

if __name__ == '__main__':
    monitor = xbmc.Monitor()
    
    while not monitor.abortRequested():
        # Sleep/wait for abort for 10 seconds
        if monitor.waitForAbort(10):
            # Abort was requested while waiting. We should exit
            break
        xbmc.log("hello addon! %s" % time.time(), level=xbmc.LOGDEBUG)

Gotham and earlier

abortRequested() and waitForAbort() are new methods introduced with Kodi Helix. In Gotham and earlier, use xbmc.sleep and check the xbmc.abortRequested attribute periodically.

Example:

import xbmc
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    while not xbmc.abortRequested:
        # some code
        xbmc.sleep(500)

Leia and earlier

Prior to Kodi v18 Leia, there was an additional option, start="startup", that would start the service add-on before the first profile login, but the usefulness of that functionality was found to be negligible, and it was removed.