Where does it store the plugin status (ex:- Installed/Uninstalled status)

I couldn't find an answer to this question in the forums.

The use case why I am interested is explained below.

My store is running on Azure.

I have a staging slot which is attached to a VSTS build pipeline. My local developments get pushed to VSTS and it builds and uploads to the staging slot. After testing I swap staging to production. Both slots have different databases (production_db and staging_db).

So, when I swap the staging site to production site, I expected the plugins in production to remain same. Ex:- in production FB plugin is disabled. but in staging it's enabled. So, when I swap, FB plugin status should not be changed between production/staging. Now, when I swap the slots FB plugin in production shows as active and staging it shows as inactive (I assumed plugin status is stored in database).

So;

1) I can't find a table related to Plugins which for example has a list with enable/disable status.

2) /Plugins or Plugins/Bin directories doesn't have any difference regardless of plugin status. Ex:- Even if I uninstall FB plugin in production, the FB dlls remain in both production and staging slots.

I have tried clearing cache/restarting application (from within NopCommerce) and also using Azure app service.

So I am wondering how the system knows which plugins are active or not?

Found the location of plugin status.

It's in installedPlugins.json in \App_Data

Azure swaps ALL files from staging <-> production.

So, if I want to keep production plugins as it is after a swap, I need to copy the installedPlugins.json in production environment after a swap.

Was wondering whether this would be much efficient if kept in database?