Claude Code plugins: install, manage and build your own

A plugin is a folder that packages pieces of Claude Code that otherwise live on their own: skills, subagents, hooks and MCP servers. Installing it adds them all at once, and updating it updates them together.

You do not need a plugin to use any of those. A skill in ~/.claude/skills/ already works in every project. A plugin is for when you want someone else's whole setup in one command, or want to give yours to a team.

Install a plugin

In a session, run /plugin. The Discover tab lists what your marketplaces offer; type to search and press Enter on one to see its details. If you know the name, go straight to it:

/plugin install commit-commands@claude-plugins-official

The part after @ is the marketplace. claude-plugins-official is Anthropic's own, which Claude Code adds the first time you start it.

The details pane shows a Will install list: the commands, skills, subagents, hooks and servers the plugin adds. For plugins in the official marketplace it also shows a context cost, what the plugin adds to every message you send. Then choose a scope:

A project-scope plugin is turned on for your teammates, but each of them still installs it on their own machine. Plugin commands carry the plugin's name, such as /commit-commands:commit, so 2 plugins can each have a command of the same name.

From your shell, for example in a setup script:

claude plugin install commit-commands@claude-plugins-official --scope project

Add a marketplace

A marketplace is only a catalog: a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file listing plugins and where to fetch each one. To install from one that is not Anthropic's, add it once:

/plugin marketplace add your-org/claude-plugins

That form is a GitHub repository. You can also give a full Git address, a local folder (starting with ./), or the https:// address of a marketplace.json. Add #v1.2.0 to a repository to pin a branch or tag. Private repositories work with the Git sign-in already on your machine.

Manage, update and remove

The Installed tab in /plugin lists your plugins. Press Space to turn one on or off without removing it, or Enter for its details, where you can update or uninstall it. A Not used recently group shows the ones you could remove. The same actions work from your shell:

claude plugin disable commit-commands@claude-plugins-official
claude plugin enable commit-commands@claude-plugins-official
claude plugin uninstall commit-commands@claude-plugins-official

Plugins from Anthropic's official marketplace update on their own; third-party marketplaces do not unless you turn auto-update on in the Marketplaces tab. A session keeps the versions it started with: run /reload-plugins to load an update now, or it applies in the next session.

What a plugin costs

An enabled plugin is part of every session, not only the ones where you use it. The name and description of each of its skills and subagents sit in Claude's Context WindowContext WindowEverything a model can see at once while it writes an answer, counted in tokens. When the window is full, something has to be left out. on every turn, its MCP servers start with each session, and its hooks run at their events. A few large plugins can take a noticeable share of every request.

Run claude plugin details with a plugin's name in your shell: its Always-on line is the tokens the plugin adds to every session. Disable what you are not using.

Check a plugin before you trust it

A plugin can run code on your machine with your user permissions. Its hooks and background commands are shell commands, its local MCP servers are programs Claude Code starts, and its bin/ folder is added to the path of Claude's shell. Hooks and servers run outside Claude's permission rules and sandbox, so those do not limit them.

Before you install from a source you do not know:

1. Read the Will install list in /plugin.
2. Open the plugin's source and read hooks/hooks.json (the command each hook runs), .mcp.json (each server's command or address) and everything in bin/.
3. Remember that auto-update can change those files later.

The marketplace names reserved for Anthropic, such as claude-plugins-official, are accepted only from Anthropic's own GitHub repositories, so a stranger cannot pass one off as Anthropic's. Every other marketplace is third-party, and the name says who runs the catalog, not what each plugin does. To remove one, run claude plugin uninstall with its name.

Build your own

A plugin is a folder with a manifest and the parts you want to share:

team-tools/
  .claude-plugin/
    plugin.json        # the manifest: name, description, version
  skills/
    release-notes/
      SKILL.md         # becomes /team-tools:release-notes
  agents/
    test-runner.md     # a subagent
  hooks/
    hooks.json         # { "hooks": { ... } }, the same shape as in settings
  .mcp.json            # MCP servers

The manifest needs little more than a name:

{
  "name": "team-tools",
  "description": "Our release notes skill, test runner and formatter hook",
  "version": "1.0.0"
}

Only plugin.json goes inside .claude-plugin/; everything else sits beside that folder, or it does not load. Check it and try it without installing anything:

claude plugin validate ./team-tools
claude --plugin-dir ./team-tools

After editing the files, run /reload-plugins in that session to pick up the change. To share it, send the folder to a few people, or list it in a marketplace.json in a repository your team adds as a marketplace, so they install it by name and receive your updates.