Plugins

Installable bundles for Claude Code that can ship skills, MCP servers, hooks, and slash commands together.

What it is

A Claude Code plugin is a distribution unit. One install can register multiple skills (skills/), MCP servers (.mcp.json), hooks (hooks/), and slash commands (commands/ or agents/) at once. Plugins live in a marketplace — a repository or local directory with a marketplace.json index — and you install from there.

Plugins are a Claude Code feature only. They don’t apply to Claude.ai or Claude Desktop chat; if you want that, see Connectors.

When to use it

  • You want to install several related components with one command.
  • You want to distribute a workflow to teammates and have everyone end up on the same version.
  • A vendor or open-source project ships their offering as a plugin (e.g., the Anthropic Life Sciences and Financial Services plugin sets).
  • You want enable/disable controls per project without uninstalling.

How to install / enable

The Anthropic-managed marketplace claude-plugins-official is registered automatically when you start Claude Code. Install from it directly:

# inside a Claude Code session
/plugin install <plugin-name>@claude-plugins-official

A good first install is claude-code-setup, which scans your project and recommends hooks, skills, MCP servers, and subagents that fit your stack. A second worth installing on day one is security-guidance — a free Anthropic-built plugin that has Claude review its own code edits for common vulnerabilities (injection, unsafe deserialization, unsafe DOM APIs) and fix findings in the same session. Per-edit pattern check is free; end-of-turn and commit reviews use normal token budget. Requires Claude Code v2.1.144+ and Python 3.8+. Activate without restart by running /reload-plugins.

For other marketplaces (community, vendor, your own), add the source first, then install:

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

Manage installs with /plugin list (filter with --enabled / --disabled, v2.1.163), /plugin enable <name>, /plugin disable <name>, /plugin uninstall <name>. Open the tabbed manager with /plugin; the Discover and Browse panes now preview a plugin’s commands, agents, skills, hooks, and MCP/LSP servers before you install, and (v2.1.172, June 2026) include a type-to-filter search box for browsing marketplaces. Run /reload-plugins after editing files in a local marketplace. Try a plugin without installing it first via claude --plugin-dir ./my-plugin (also accepts a .zip archive) or claude --plugin-url https://…/plugin.zip. Remove orphaned dependencies with claude plugin prune.

Author a plugin without a marketplace (v2.1.157, May 2026). Any plugin placed inside a .claude/skills/ directory (project or user) is auto-loaded — no marketplace registration step. Scaffold one with claude plugin init <name>, which creates a starter plugin under .claude/skills/<name>/ for you to fill in. Use this for one-off internal plugins; promote to a marketplace when you want to share.

Common pitfalls

  • Forgetting the @marketplace-name suffix on /plugin install — Claude Code needs to know the source.
  • Installing into the wrong scope. The CLI may prompt for project vs. user; choose deliberately.
  • Treating plugins as runtime sandboxes — they bring along whatever the author shipped (skills, hooks, MCP). Review before installing.
  • Trying to /plugin disable something another enabled plugin depends on — the CLI now blocks this and prints a disable-chain hint.
  • Expecting Claude Code plugins to work in Claude.ai chat. Cowork and Cowork Enterprise have their own plugin model layered on top (e.g., Claude for Small Business, a single-toggle Cowork plugin shipped 2026-05-13 that bundles Intuit, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365 connectors with 15 prebuilt workflows) — see Cowork plugins.

See also

Sources

  • Discover and install prebuilt plugins through marketplaces — Anthropic docs; verified 2026-05-21 (this run).
  • Claude Code changelog (May–June 2026) — --plugin-dir zip support, --plugin-url, dependency enforcement, claude plugin prune, /plugin Discover/Browse component previews, (v2.1.157, 2026-05-29) auto-loading of plugins in .claude/skills/ plus claude plugin init <name> scaffolding, (v2.1.163, 2026-06-04) /plugin list --enabled / --disabled filters, and (v2.1.172, 2026-06-10) type-to-filter search in /plugin marketplace browsing; verified 2026-06-13 (this run).
  • anthropics/claude-plugins-official — verified 2026-05-21; pre-registered with Claude Code; includes claude-code-setup.
  • anthropics/claude-plugins-community — verified 2026-05-19.
  • Cowork and plugins for teams across the enterprise — Anthropic blog; published 2026-02-24 — Cowork-layer plugins are separate from Claude Code plugins.
  • Introducing Claude for Small Business — Anthropic news; published 2026-05-13 — example of a Cowork toggle plugin bundling connectors + workflows.
  • Agents for financial services — Anthropic news; published 2026-05-05 — 10 finance agent plugins (pitch builder, KYC screener, month-end closer, …) ship to both Cowork and Claude Code from the anthropics/financial-services marketplace; installs financial-analysis first for shared MCP connectors.
  • Catch security issues as Claude writes code — Anthropic docs; verified 2026-06-04 (this run) — /plugin install security-guidance@claude-plugins-official install path, three-layer review (per-edit pattern check, end-of-turn diff review, agentic commit review), .claude/claude-security-guidance.md and .claude/security-patterns.yaml customization, v2.1.144+ and Python 3.8+ prerequisites.
  • Week 22 (May 25–29 2026) release notes — Anthropic docs; verified 2026-06-04 — security-guidance shipped as part of the Week 22 release alongside Opus 4.8 + Dynamic Workflows.