Embodiments are directed towards storing data in a storage system using an extensible data path. Data files may be provided to a caching tier in a storage system. If data files remain in the caching tier longer than a time limit, those data files may be removed from the caching tier and provided to a processing pipeline. The processing pipeline may be coupled to a capacity tier of the storage system. Filters to include in the processing pipeline may be determined based on the type of the data files. The data files may be updated based on applying each filter, such that each update corresponding to each filter may be cumulatively applied to each data file. Each updated data file may be stored in the capacity tier of the storage system after each filter in the processing pipeline has been applied.