Marketplaces

Curated catalogs of plugins (and the skills/MCP servers inside them) that Claude Code can install from.

What it is

A marketplace is a marketplace.json index — usually in a GitHub repo — listing plugins available for /plugin install. Once you register a marketplace, its plugins are discoverable in the /plugin browser and addressable as <plugin-name>@<marketplace-name>. You add the marketplace itself from GitHub owner/repo, any Git URL, a local directory, or a direct URL to a hosted marketplace.json. Inside that file, an individual plugin entry can point to a GitHub repo, a git URL (including a monorepo subdirectory), an npm package, or — new in v2.1.224 (2026-08-07) — a zip file over plain HTTPS with an optional SHA-256 pin. You install any of these the same way; the source type only matters to whoever authored the marketplace.

Anthropic ships the claude-plugins-official marketplace pre-registered — it’s available the first time you open Claude Code. Other Anthropic-managed marketplaces (community, life-sciences, knowledge-work) and any third-party marketplace must be added explicitly. On the Claude.ai side, the unified Directory at claude.ai/directory surfaces Plugins alongside Skills and Connectors — separate from the Claude Code marketplace mechanism described here.

When to use it

  • You want one command to make a vendor’s plugins discoverable.
  • Your team maintains internal plugins and wants to install them with a single source-of-truth URL.
  • You want to pull a domain bundle (e.g., life sciences) without picking plugins one at a time.

How to install / enable

Inside a Claude Code session, add a marketplace by GitHub owner/repo:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/life-sciences
/plugin install pubmed@life-sciences

Other domain marketplaces ship the same way — e.g., finance:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/financial-services
/plugin install financial-analysis@claude-for-financial-services

Other source forms:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community
/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/your-org/your-marketplace.git
/plugin marketplace add https://gitlab.com/your-org/your-marketplace.git
/plugin marketplace add ~/projects/local-marketplace

GitLab repos work as a full https://gitlab.com/... URL, shown above. The v2.1.232 (2026-08-13) changelog also describes a bare gitlab.com/owner/repo shorthand (no scheme, nested subgroups included) cloning like GitHub’s owner/repo form — Anthropic’s plugin-marketplaces doc hasn’t caught up to that yet, so stick to the full URL if the bare form doesn’t resolve for you.

List, remove, or update with /plugin marketplace list, /plugin marketplace remove <name> (or rm), and /plugin marketplace update <name>.

Common pitfalls

  • Skipping /plugin marketplace add before /plugin install — installs need a registered source.
  • Adding a private repo without authentication — Claude Code uses your local Git credentials.
  • Forgetting to /plugin marketplace update after the upstream marketplace changes — install will fail with “not found” if the local clone is stale.
  • Trying to remove or update a seed-managed marketplace (container-deployed, read-only) — fails by design; admins must update the seed image.
  • Trusting marketplaces blindly. Marketplaces are arbitrary repos; review the plugins they list.

See also

Sources