diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 0aaa6beab8b..3ccadfbb6e9 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -2990,6 +2990,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "observability_deps",
  "parquet_file",
  "pyo3",
+ "reqwest 0.11.27",
  "tempfile",
  "thiserror 1.0.69",
  "tokio",
diff --git a/influxdb3/tests/server/cli.rs b/influxdb3/tests/server/cli.rs
index f021a2c341b..6ea41e0eaee 100644
--- a/influxdb3/tests/server/cli.rs
+++ b/influxdb3/tests/server/cli.rs
@@ -1164,3 +1164,64 @@ def process_writes(influxdb3_local, table_batches, args=None):
         );
     }
 }
+
+#[cfg(feature = "system-py")]
+#[test_log::test(tokio::test)]
+async fn test_load_wal_plugin_from_gh() {
+    use crate::ConfigProvider;
+    use influxdb3_client::Precision;
+
+    let plugin_dir = TempDir::new().unwrap();
+
+    let server = TestServer::configure()
+        .with_plugin_dir(plugin_dir.path().to_str().unwrap())
+        .spawn()
+        .await;
+    let server_addr = server.client_addr();
+
+    server
+        .write_lp_to_db(
+            "foo",
+            "cpu,host=s1,region=us-east usage=0.9\n\
+            cpu,host=s2,region=us-east usage=0.89\n\
+            cpu,host=s1,region=us-east usage=0.85",
+            Precision::Nanosecond,
+        )
+        .await
+        .unwrap();
+
+    let db_name = "foo";
+
+    // this will pull from https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb3_plugins/blob/main/examples/wal_plugin/wal_plugin.py
+    let plugin_name = "gh:examples/wal_plugin";
+
+    // Run the test to make sure it'll load from GH
+    let result = run_with_confirmation(&[
+        "test",
+        "wal_plugin",
+        "--database",
+        db_name,
+        "--host",
+        &server_addr,
+        "--lp",
+        "test_input,tag1=tag1_value,tag2=tag2_value field1=1i 500",
+        plugin_name,
+    ]);
+    debug!(result = ?result, "test wal plugin");
+
+    let res = serde_json::from_str::<serde_json::Value>(&result).unwrap();
+
+    let expected_result = r#"{
+  "log_lines": [
+    "INFO: wal_plugin.py done"
+  ],
+  "database_writes": {
+    "foo": [
+      "write_reports,table_name=test_input row_count=1i"
+    ]
+  },
+  "errors": []
+}"#;
+    let expected_result = serde_json::from_str::<serde_json::Value>(expected_result).unwrap();
+    assert_eq!(res, expected_result);
+}
diff --git a/influxdb3_processing_engine/Cargo.toml b/influxdb3_processing_engine/Cargo.toml
index 2b952c89ecc..9b2b9f51e53 100644
--- a/influxdb3_processing_engine/Cargo.toml
+++ b/influxdb3_processing_engine/Cargo.toml
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ influxdb3_py_api = { path = "../influxdb3_py_api" }
 influxdb3_wal = { path = "../influxdb3_wal" }
 influxdb3_write = { path = "../influxdb3_write" }
 observability_deps.workspace = true
+reqwest.workspace = true
 thiserror.workspace = true
 tokio.workspace = true
 
diff --git a/influxdb3_processing_engine/src/lib.rs b/influxdb3_processing_engine/src/lib.rs
index 1578d279a59..19a0178d053 100644
--- a/influxdb3_processing_engine/src/lib.rs
+++ b/influxdb3_processing_engine/src/lib.rs
@@ -117,7 +117,30 @@ impl ProcessingEngineManagerImpl {
         }
     }
 
-    pub fn read_plugin_code(&self, name: &str) -> Result<String, plugins::Error> {
+    pub async fn read_plugin_code(&self, name: &str) -> Result<String, plugins::Error> {
+        // if the name starts with gh: then we need to get it from the public github repo at https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb3_plugins/tree/main
+        if name.starts_with("gh:") {
+            let plugin_path = name.strip_prefix("gh:").unwrap();
+            // the filename should be the last part of the name after the last /
+            let plugin_name = plugin_path
+                .split('/')
+                .last()
+                .context("plugin name for github plugins must be <dir>/<name>")?;
+            let url = format!(
+                "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/influxdata/influxdb3_plugins/main/{}/{}.py",
+                plugin_path, plugin_name
+            );
+            let resp = reqwest::get(&url)
+                .await
+                .context("error getting plugin from github repo")?;
+            let resp_body = resp
+                .text()
+                .await
+                .context("error reading plugin from github repo")?;
+            return Ok(resp_body);
+        }
+
+        // otherwise we assume it is a local file
         let plugin_dir = self.plugin_dir.clone().context("plugin dir not set")?;
         let path = plugin_dir.join(name);
         Ok(std::fs::read_to_string(path)?)
@@ -314,7 +337,7 @@ impl ProcessingEngineManager for ProcessingEngineManagerImpl {
                 write_buffer,
                 query_executor,
             };
-            let plugin_code = self.read_plugin_code(&trigger.plugin_file_name)?;
+            let plugin_code = self.read_plugin_code(&trigger.plugin_file_name).await?;
             plugins::run_plugin(db_name.to_string(), plugin_code, trigger, plugin_context);
         }
 
@@ -434,7 +457,7 @@ impl ProcessingEngineManager for ProcessingEngineManagerImpl {
             let catalog = Arc::new(Catalog::from_inner(self.catalog.clone_inner()));
             let now = self.time_provider.now();
 
-            let code = self.read_plugin_code(&request.filename)?;
+            let code = self.read_plugin_code(&request.filename).await?;
 
             let res = plugins::run_test_wal_plugin(now, catalog, query_executor, code, request)
                 .unwrap_or_else(|e| WalPluginTestResponse {