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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://code.claude.com/docs/llms.txt Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Create plugins

Create custom plugins to extend Claude Code with skills, agents, hooks, and MCP servers.

Plugins let you extend Claude Code with custom functionality that can be shared across projects and teams. This guide covers creating your own plugins with skills, agents, hooks, and MCP servers.

Looking to install existing plugins? See Discover and install plugins. For complete technical specifications, see Plugins reference.

When to use plugins vs standalone configuration

Claude Code supports two ways to add custom skills, agents, and hooks:

Approach Skill names Best for
Standalone (.claude/ directory) /hello Personal workflows, project-specific customizations, quick experiments
Plugins (directories with .claude-plugin/plugin.json) /plugin-name:hello Sharing with teammates, distributing to community, versioned releases, reusable across projects

Use standalone configuration when:

Use plugins when:

Start with standalone configuration in .claude/ for quick iteration, then convert to a plugin when you're ready to share.

Quickstart

This quickstart walks you through creating a plugin with a custom skill. You'll create a manifest (the configuration file that defines your plugin), add a skill, and test it locally using the --plugin-dir flag.

Prerequisites

If you don't see the /plugin command, update Claude Code to the latest version. See Troubleshooting for upgrade instructions.

Create your first plugin

Every plugin lives in its own directory containing a manifest and your skills, agents, or hooks. Create one now:

```bash theme={null}
mkdir my-first-plugin
```

The manifest file at .claude-plugin/plugin.json defines your plugin's identity: its name, description, and version. Claude Code uses this metadata to display your plugin in the plugin manager.

Create the `.claude-plugin` directory inside your plugin folder:

```bash theme={null}
mkdir my-first-plugin/.claude-plugin
```

Then create `my-first-plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json` with this content:

```json my-first-plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json theme={null}
{
  "name": "my-first-plugin",
  "description": "A greeting plugin to learn the basics",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "author": {
    "name": "Your Name"
  }
}
```

| Field         | Purpose                                                                                                |
| :------------ | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `name`        | Unique identifier and skill namespace. Skills are prefixed with this (e.g., `/my-first-plugin:hello`). |
| `description` | Shown in the plugin manager when browsing or installing plugins.                                       |
| `version`     | Track releases using [semantic versioning](https://code.claude.com/en/plugins-reference#version-management).                  |
| `author`      | Optional. Helpful for attribution.                                                                     |

For additional fields like `homepage`, `repository`, and `license`, see the [full manifest schema](https://code.claude.com/en/plugins-reference#plugin-manifest-schema).

Skills live in the skills/ directory. Each skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file. The folder name becomes the skill name, prefixed with the plugin's namespace (hello/ in a plugin named my-first-plugin creates /my-first-plugin:hello).

Create a skill directory in your plugin folder:

```bash theme={null}
mkdir -p my-first-plugin/skills/hello
```

Then create `my-first-plugin/skills/hello/SKILL.md` with this content:

```markdown my-first-plugin/skills/hello/SKILL.md theme={null}
---
description: Greet the user with a friendly message
disable-model-invocation: true
---

Greet the user warmly and ask how you can help them today.
```

Run Claude Code with the --plugin-dir flag to load your plugin:

```bash theme={null}
claude --plugin-dir ./my-first-plugin
```

Once Claude Code starts, try your new skill:

```shell theme={null}
/my-first-plugin:hello
```

You'll see Claude respond with a greeting. Run `/help` to see your skill listed under the plugin namespace.

<Note>
  **Why namespacing?** Plugin skills are always namespaced (like `/my-first-plugin:hello`) to prevent conflicts when multiple plugins have skills with the same name.

  To change the namespace prefix, update the `name` field in `plugin.json`.
</Note>

Make your skill dynamic by accepting user input. The $ARGUMENTS placeholder captures any text the user provides after the skill name.

Update your `SKILL.md` file:

```markdown my-first-plugin/skills/hello/SKILL.md theme={null}
---
description: Greet the user with a personalized message
---

# Hello Skill

Greet the user named "$ARGUMENTS" warmly and ask how you can help them today. Make the greeting personal and encouraging.
```

Run `/reload-plugins` to pick up the changes, then try the skill with your name:

```shell theme={null}
/my-first-plugin:hello Alex
```

Claude will greet you by name. For more on passing arguments to skills, see [Skills](https://code.claude.com/en/skills#pass-arguments-to-skills).

You've successfully created and tested a plugin with these key components:

The --plugin-dir flag is useful for development and testing. When you're ready to share your plugin with others, see Create and distribute a plugin marketplace.

Plugin structure overview

You've created a plugin with a skill, but plugins can include much more: custom agents, hooks, MCP servers, LSP servers, and background monitors.

Common mistake: Don't put commands/, agents/, skills/, or hooks/ inside the .claude-plugin/ directory. Only plugin.json goes inside .claude-plugin/. All other directories must be at the plugin root level.

Directory Location Purpose
.claude-plugin/ Plugin root Contains plugin.json manifest (optional if components use default locations)
skills/ Plugin root Skills as <name>/SKILL.md directories
commands/ Plugin root Skills as flat Markdown files. Use skills/ for new plugins
agents/ Plugin root Custom agent definitions
hooks/ Plugin root Event handlers in hooks.json
.mcp.json Plugin root MCP server configurations
.lsp.json Plugin root LSP server configurations for code intelligence
monitors/ Plugin root Background monitor configurations in monitors.json
bin/ Plugin root Executables added to the Bash tool's PATH while the plugin is enabled
settings.json Plugin root Default settings applied when the plugin is enabled

Next steps: Ready to add more features? Jump to Develop more complex plugins to add agents, hooks, MCP servers, and LSP servers. For complete technical specifications of all plugin components, see Plugins reference.

Develop more complex plugins

Once you're comfortable with basic plugins, you can create more sophisticated extensions.

Add Skills to your plugin

Plugins can include Agent Skills to extend Claude's capabilities. Skills are model-invoked: Claude automatically uses them based on the task context.

Add a skills/ directory at your plugin root with Skill folders containing SKILL.md files:

```text theme={null} my-plugin/ ├── .claude-plugin/ │ └── plugin.json └── skills/ └── code-review/ └── SKILL.md


Each `SKILL.md` contains YAML frontmatter and instructions. Include a `description` so Claude knows when to use the skill:

```yaml theme={null}
---
description: Reviews code for best practices and potential issues. Use when reviewing code, checking PRs, or analyzing code quality.
---

When reviewing code, check for:
1. Code organization and structure
2. Error handling
3. Security concerns
4. Test coverage

After installing the plugin, run /reload-plugins to load the Skills. For complete Skill authoring guidance including progressive disclosure and tool restrictions, see Agent Skills.

Add LSP servers to your plugin

For common languages like TypeScript, Python, and Rust, install the pre-built LSP plugins from the official marketplace. Create custom LSP plugins only when you need support for languages not already covered.

LSP (Language Server Protocol) plugins give Claude real-time code intelligence. If you need to support a language that doesn't have an official LSP plugin, you can create your own by adding an .lsp.json file to your plugin:

```json .lsp.json theme={null} { "go": { "command": "gopls", "args": ["serve"], "extensionToLanguage": { ".go": "go" } } }


Users installing your plugin must have the language server binary installed on their machine.

For complete LSP configuration options, see [LSP servers](https://code.claude.com/en/plugins-reference#lsp-servers).

### Add background monitors to your plugin

Background monitors let your plugin watch logs, files, or external status in the background and notify Claude as events arrive. Claude Code starts each monitor automatically when the plugin is active, so you don't need to instruct Claude to start the watch.

Add a `monitors/monitors.json` file at the plugin root with an array of monitor entries:

```json monitors/monitors.json theme={null}
[
  {
    "name": "error-log",
    "command": "tail -F ./logs/error.log",
    "description": "Application error log"
  }
]

Each stdout line from command is delivered to Claude as a notification during the session. For the full schema, including the when trigger and variable substitution, see Monitors.

Ship default settings with your plugin

Plugins can include a settings.json file at the plugin root to apply default configuration when the plugin is enabled. Currently, only the agent and subagentStatusLine keys are supported.

Setting agent activates one of the plugin's custom agents as the main thread, applying its system prompt, tool restrictions, and model. This lets a plugin change how Claude Code behaves by default when enabled.

```json settings.json theme={null} { "agent": "security-reviewer" }


This example activates the `security-reviewer` agent defined in the plugin's `agents/` directory. Settings from `settings.json` take priority over `settings` declared in `plugin.json`. Unknown keys are silently ignored.

### Organize complex plugins

For plugins with many components, organize your directory structure by functionality. For complete directory layouts and organization patterns, see [Plugin directory structure](https://code.claude.com/en/plugins-reference#plugin-directory-structure).

### Test your plugins locally

Use the `--plugin-dir` flag to test plugins during development. This loads your plugin directly without requiring installation.

```bash theme={null}
claude --plugin-dir ./my-plugin

When a --plugin-dir plugin has the same name as an installed marketplace plugin, the local copy takes precedence for that session. This lets you test changes to a plugin you already have installed without uninstalling it first. Marketplace plugins force-enabled by managed settings are the only exception and cannot be overridden.

As you make changes to your plugin, run /reload-plugins to pick up the updates without restarting. This reloads plugins, skills, agents, hooks, plugin MCP servers, and plugin LSP servers. Test your plugin components:

You can load multiple plugins at once by specifying the flag multiple times:

bash theme={null} claude --plugin-dir ./plugin-one --plugin-dir ./plugin-two

Debug plugin issues

If your plugin isn't working as expected:

  1. Check the structure: Ensure your directories are at the plugin root, not inside .claude-plugin/
  2. Test components individually: Check each skill, agent, and hook separately
  3. Use validation and debugging tools: See Debugging and development tools for CLI commands and troubleshooting techniques

Share your plugins

When your plugin is ready to share:

  1. Add documentation: Include a README.md with installation and usage instructions
  2. Version your plugin: Use semantic versioning in your plugin.json
  3. Create or use a marketplace: Distribute through plugin marketplaces for installation
  4. Test with others: Have team members test the plugin before wider distribution

Once your plugin is in a marketplace, others can install it using the instructions in Discover and install plugins.

Submit your plugin to the official marketplace

To submit a plugin to the official Anthropic marketplace, use one of the in-app submission forms:

Once your plugin is listed, you can have your own CLI prompt Claude Code users to install it. See Recommend your plugin from your CLI.

For complete technical specifications, debugging techniques, and distribution strategies, see Plugins reference.

Convert existing configurations to plugins

If you already have skills or hooks in your .claude/ directory, you can convert them into a plugin for easier sharing and distribution.

Migration steps

Create a new plugin directory:

```bash theme={null}
mkdir -p my-plugin/.claude-plugin
```

Create the manifest file at `my-plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json`:

```json my-plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json theme={null}
{
  "name": "my-plugin",
  "description": "Migrated from standalone configuration",
  "version": "1.0.0"
}
```

Copy your existing configurations to the plugin directory:

```bash theme={null}
# Copy commands
cp -r .claude/commands my-plugin/

# Copy agents (if any)
cp -r .claude/agents my-plugin/

# Copy skills (if any)
cp -r .claude/skills my-plugin/
```

If you have hooks in your settings, create a hooks directory:

```bash theme={null}
mkdir my-plugin/hooks
```

Create `my-plugin/hooks/hooks.json` with your hooks configuration. Copy the `hooks` object from your `.claude/settings.json` or `settings.local.json`, since the format is the same. The command receives hook input as JSON on stdin, so use `jq` to extract the file path:

```json my-plugin/hooks/hooks.json theme={null}
{
  "hooks": {
    "PostToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Write|Edit",
        "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "jq -r '.tool_input.file_path' | xargs npm run lint:fix" }]
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

Load your plugin to verify everything works:

```bash theme={null}
claude --plugin-dir ./my-plugin
```

Test each component: run your commands, check agents appear in `/agents`, and verify hooks trigger correctly.

What changes when migrating

Standalone (.claude/) Plugin
Only available in one project Can be shared via marketplaces
Files in .claude/commands/ Files in plugin-name/commands/
Hooks in settings.json Hooks in hooks/hooks.json
Must manually copy to share Install with /plugin install

After migrating, you can remove the original files from .claude/ to avoid duplicates. The plugin version will take precedence when loaded.

Next steps

Now that you understand Claude Code's plugin system, here are suggested paths for different goals:

For plugin users

For plugin developers