A self-adapting plug-in service that runs on a plurality of platforms and obviates the need to develop a different version of the plug-in service for each platform. A self-adapting plug-in service according to the present techniques includes code that generates a platform access using a common plug-in API and a translation layer that translates the platform access into a platform-specific access that is adapted one of the platforms that is running under the self-adapting plug-in service.