Discover and install prebuilt plugins through marketplaces - Claude Code Docs (original) (raw)

Plugins extend Claude Code with skills, agents, hooks, and MCP servers. Plugin marketplaces are catalogs that help you discover and install these extensions without building them yourself. Looking to create and distribute your own marketplace? See Create and distribute a plugin marketplace.

How marketplaces work

A marketplace is a catalog of plugins that someone else has created and shared. Using a marketplace is a two-step process:

Think of it like adding an app store: adding the store gives you access to browse its collection, but you still choose which apps to download individually.

Official Anthropic marketplace

The official Anthropic marketplace (claude-plugins-official) is automatically available when you start Claude Code. Run /plugin and go to the Discover tab to browse what’s available, or view the catalog at claude.com/plugins. To install a plugin from the official marketplace, use /plugin install <name>@claude-plugins-official. For example, to install the GitHub integration:

/plugin install github@claude-plugins-official

If Claude Code reports that the plugin is not found in any marketplace, your marketplace is either missing or outdated. Run /plugin marketplace update claude-plugins-official to refresh it, or /plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-official if you haven’t added it before. Then retry the install.

The official marketplace includes several categories of plugins:

Code intelligence

Code intelligence plugins enable Claude Code’s built-in LSP tool, giving Claude the ability to jump to definitions, find references, and see type errors immediately after edits. These plugins configure Language Server Protocol connections, the same technology that powers VS Code’s code intelligence. These plugins require the language server binary to be installed on your system. If you already have a language server installed, Claude may prompt you to install the corresponding plugin when you open a project.

Language Plugin Binary required
C/C++ clangd-lsp clangd
C# csharp-lsp csharp-ls
Go gopls-lsp gopls
Java jdtls-lsp jdtls
Kotlin kotlin-lsp kotlin-language-server
Lua lua-lsp lua-language-server
PHP php-lsp intelephense
Python pyright-lsp pyright-langserver
Rust rust-analyzer-lsp rust-analyzer
Swift swift-lsp sourcekit-lsp
TypeScript typescript-lsp typescript-language-server

You can also create your own LSP plugin for other languages.

What Claude gains from code intelligence plugins

Once a code intelligence plugin is installed and its language server binary is available, Claude gains two capabilities:

If you run into issues, see Code intelligence troubleshooting.

External integrations

These plugins bundle pre-configured MCP servers so you can connect Claude to external services without manual setup:

Automatic security review

The security-guidance plugin reviews each change Claude makes for common vulnerabilities and instructs Claude to fix what it finds in the same session. See Catch security issues as Claude writes code for what it checks and how to add project-specific rules.

Development workflows

Plugins that add skills and agents for common development tasks:

Output styles

Customize how Claude responds:

The community marketplace at anthropics/claude-plugins-community hosts third-party plugins that have passed Anthropic’s automated validation and safety screening. Each plugin is pinned to a specific commit SHA in the catalog. Unlike the official marketplace, you add it manually:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community

Then install plugins from it using the claude-community marketplace name:

/plugin install <plugin-name>@claude-community

To submit your own plugin to the community marketplace, see Submit your plugin to the community marketplace in the create-plugins guide.

Try it: add the demo marketplace

Anthropic also maintains a demo plugins marketplace (claude-code-plugins) with example plugins that show what’s possible with the plugin system. Unlike the official marketplace, you need to add this one manually.

The rest of this guide covers all the ways you can add marketplaces, install plugins, and manage your configuration.

Use the /plugin marketplace add command to add marketplaces from different sources.

Add from GitHub

Add a GitHub repository that contains a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file using the owner/repo format—where owner is the GitHub username or organization and repo is the repository name. For example, anthropics/claude-code refers to the claude-code repository owned by anthropics:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-code

Add from other Git hosts

Add any git repository by providing the full URL. This works with any Git host, including GitLab, Bitbucket, and self-hosted servers. Include the .git suffix so Claude Code clones the repository rather than treating the URL as a direct link to a hosted marketplace.json file. Using HTTPS:

/plugin marketplace add https://gitlab.com/company/plugins.git

Using SSH:

/plugin marketplace add git@gitlab.com:company/plugins.git

To add a specific branch or tag, append # followed by the ref:

/plugin marketplace add https://gitlab.com/company/plugins.git#v1.0.0

Add from local paths

Add a local directory that contains a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file:

/plugin marketplace add ./my-marketplace

You can also add a direct path to a marketplace.json file:

/plugin marketplace add ./path/to/marketplace.json

Add from remote URLs

Add a remote marketplace.json file via URL:

/plugin marketplace add https://example.com/marketplace.json

Install plugins

Once you’ve added marketplaces, you can install plugins directly (installs to user scope by default):

/plugin install plugin-name@marketplace-name

To choose a different installation scope, use the interactive UI: run /plugin, go to the Discover tab, and press Enter on a plugin. You’ll see options for:

You may also see plugins with managed scope—these are installed by administrators via managed settings and cannot be modified.

Manage installed plugins

Run /plugin and go to the Installed tab to view, enable, disable, or uninstall your plugins. The list is grouped by scope and sorted so you see problems first: plugins with load errors or unresolved dependencies appear at the top, followed by your favorites, with disabled plugins folded behind a collapsed header at the bottom. From the list you can:

The detail view shows the components the plugin contributes: commands, skills, agents, hooks, MCP servers, and LSP servers. The same inventory is available from the command line with claude plugin details. When you install a plugin that declares dependencies, the install output lists which dependencies were auto-installed alongside it. You can also manage plugins with direct commands. List installed plugins without opening the menu:

Pass --enabled or --disabled to show only plugins in that state. Disable a plugin without uninstalling:

/plugin disable plugin-name@marketplace-name

Re-enable a disabled plugin:

/plugin enable plugin-name@marketplace-name

Completely remove a plugin:

/plugin uninstall plugin-name@marketplace-name

The --scope option lets you target a specific scope with CLI commands:

claude plugin install formatter@your-org --scope project
claude plugin uninstall formatter@your-org --scope project

Apply plugin changes without restarting

When you install, enable, or disable plugins during a session, run /reload-plugins to pick up all changes without restarting:

Claude Code reloads all active plugins and shows counts for plugins, skills, agents, hooks, plugin MCP servers, and plugin LSP servers. Reloading has a token cost on the next request: newly loaded components announce themselves in content appended to the conversation, while the existing history still reads from the prompt cache. A plugin that provides MCP servers costs more when its tools aren’t deferred by tool search: the change invalidates the cache and the next request re-reads the entire conversation. In that case /reload-plugins shows a warning and does not apply the reload; pass --force to apply anyway. See enabling or disabling a plugin for details.

Manage marketplaces

You can manage marketplaces through the interactive /plugin interface or with CLI commands.

Use the interactive interface

Run /plugin and go to the Marketplaces tab to:

Use CLI commands

You can also manage marketplaces with direct commands. List all configured marketplaces:

Refresh plugin listings from a marketplace:

/plugin marketplace update marketplace-name

Remove a marketplace:

/plugin marketplace remove marketplace-name

Configure auto-updates

Claude Code can automatically update marketplaces and their installed plugins at startup. When auto-update is enabled for a marketplace, Claude Code refreshes the marketplace data and updates installed plugins to their latest versions. If any plugins were updated, you’ll see a notification prompting you to run /reload-plugins. Toggle auto-update for individual marketplaces through the UI:

  1. Run /plugin to open the plugin manager
  2. Select Marketplaces
  3. Choose a marketplace from the list
  4. Select Enable auto-update or Disable auto-update

Official Anthropic marketplaces have auto-update enabled by default. Third-party and local development marketplaces have auto-update disabled by default. Administrators can also set "autoUpdate": true on each extraKnownMarketplaces entry in managed settings to enable auto-update for an organization marketplace without requiring each user to toggle it. To disable all automatic updates entirely for both Claude Code and all plugins, set the DISABLE_AUTOUPDATER environment variable. See Auto updates for details. To keep plugin auto-updates enabled while disabling Claude Code auto-updates, set FORCE_AUTOUPDATE_PLUGINS=1 along with DISABLE_AUTOUPDATER:

export DISABLE_AUTOUPDATER=1
export FORCE_AUTOUPDATE_PLUGINS=1

This is useful when you want to manage Claude Code updates manually but still receive automatic plugin updates.

Configure team marketplaces

Team admins can set up automatic marketplace installation for projects by adding marketplace configuration to .claude/settings.json. When team members trust the repository folder, Claude Code prompts them to install these marketplaces and plugins. Add extraKnownMarketplaces to your project’s .claude/settings.json:

{
  "extraKnownMarketplaces": {
    "my-team-tools": {
      "source": {
        "source": "github",
        "repo": "your-org/claude-plugins"
      }
    }
  }
}

For full configuration options including extraKnownMarketplaces and enabledPlugins, see Plugin settings.

Security

Plugins and marketplaces are highly trusted components that can execute arbitrary code on your machine with your user privileges. Only install plugins and add marketplaces from sources you trust. Organizations can restrict which marketplaces users are allowed to add using managed marketplace restrictions.

Troubleshooting

/plugin command not recognized

If you see “unknown command” or the /plugin command doesn’t appear:

  1. Check your version: Run claude --version to see what’s installed.
  2. Update Claude Code:
    • Homebrew: brew upgrade claude-code (or brew upgrade claude-code@latest if you installed that cask)
    • npm: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code@latest
    • Native installer: Re-run the install command from Setup
  3. Restart Claude Code: After updating, restart your terminal and run claude again.

Common issues

For detailed troubleshooting with solutions, see Troubleshooting in the marketplace guide. For debugging tools, see Debugging and development tools.

Code intelligence issues

Next steps