Adding third party hardware to network devices

A method comprising:

• receiving, by a network device, a hardware component that has been directly physically coupled to the network device, the network device having been manufactured by a manufacturer and the hardware component having been developed by a third party developer different than the manufacturer, the network device including one or more hardware resources to which the network routing device grants secure access only to the network routing device and hardware components having application programming interfaces (APIs) of a software development kit (SDK) provided by the manufacturer of the network routing device prior to a corresponding one of the hardware components being directly physically coupled to the network device;
• receiving, by the network routing device, data for an application programming interface (API) for the hardware component, the API being of the SDK provided by the manufacturer of the network device;
• and
• executing, by the network device, the API for the hardware component to grant the hardware component secure access to the hardware resources of the network device via the API.