how to test backend plugin without involving flytekit. Updating existing plugin in go, is it possible to test it without writing tasks and workflows?

yeah, that's possible. Please take a look at https://docs.flyte.org/en/latest/user_guide/extending/backend_plugins.html#extend-plugin-flyte-backend. Also, keep in mind that we also offer agents as a way to extend Flyte: https://docs.flyte.org/en/latest/flyte_agents/index.html. You can use single-binary to have a tight feedback loop. Can you talk a bit more about your use case?

Does, make compile will compile the proto files as well or we need to compile them manually? if it's manual can oyu help me with procedure and commands? for ex: I have this proto file: /home/kpattam/mb/flyte/flyteidl/protos/flyteidl/plugins/ray.proto How it was compiled in the current repo?

The generate make target in

flyteidl

directory is responsible for regenerating the stubs. You don't need anything special to run it (apart from having go 1.21 or 1.22 installed), i.e. from the root of the repo run

make -C flyteidl generate

.

Thank you