diff --git a/register-plugins.nu b/register-plugins.nu
index 7aed530c68..a1e0c8fdc2 100644
--- a/register-plugins.nu
+++ b/register-plugins.nu
@@ -3,19 +3,24 @@ def match [input, matchers: record] {
     echo $matchers | get $input | do $in
 }
 
+# register plugin
+def register_plugin [encoding, plugin] {
+    print $"registering ($plugin)"
+    nu -c $'register -e ($encoding) ($plugin)'
+}
+
 # get list of all plugin files from their installed directory
 let plugin_location = ((which nu).path.0 | path dirname)
 
 # for each plugin file, print the name and launch another instance of nushell to register it
 for plugin in (ls $"($plugin_location)/nu_plugin_*") {
-    print $"registering ($plugin.name)"
     match ($plugin.name | path basename | str replace '\.exe$' '') {
-        nu_plugin_custom_values: { nu -c $'register -e msgpack ($plugin.name)' }
-        nu_plugin_example: { nu -c $'register -e msgpack ($plugin.name)' }
-        nu_plugin_from_parquet: { nu -c $'register -e json ($plugin.name)' }
-        nu_plugin_gstat: { nu -c $'register -e msgpack ($plugin.name)' }
-        nu_plugin_inc: { nu -c $'register -e json ($plugin.name)' }
-        nu_plugin_query: { nu -c $'register -e json ($plugin.name)' }
+        nu_plugin_custom_values: { register_plugin msgpack $plugin.name }
+        nu_plugin_example: { register_plugin msgpack $plugin.name }
+        nu_plugin_from_parquet: { register_plugin json $plugin.name }
+        nu_plugin_gstat: { register_plugin msgpack $plugin.name }
+        nu_plugin_inc: { register_plugin json $plugin.name }
+        nu_plugin_query: { register_plugin json $plugin.name }
     }
 }