Claude Code plugins: what they are, how to install them and which to pick in 2026

What is a Claude Code plugin?

A plugin is a bundle of components that Claude Code installs and loads as one unit. Its root holds a .claude-plugin/plugin.json manifest with the name, version and description. According to Anthropic's documentation as of 29 October 2026, a plugin can contain:

• skills with SKILL.md instructions that Claude loads when a task matches or when you call them;
• subagents that Claude hands part of the work to;
• hooks, which are commands Claude Code runs at a set moment, for example after every file edit;
• MCP and LSP servers, which add tools for outside services and language-aware hints for your programming language;
• a JavaScript hooks module; the docs call a plugin with such a module a mod.

A plugin's skills are called through the plugin's name. After you install commit-commands, for example, the menu shows /commit-commands:commit. That way two plugins with skills of the same name don't clash.

Plugin vs skill vs MCP server: what's the difference?

Skills, subagents, hooks and MCP servers all work without a plugin. A skill in ~/.claude/skills/ is available in every project, and an MCP server connects with claude mcp add. A plugin is useful when several of these pieces should be installed and updated together. Anthropic's docs put it this way: you use a plugin to get someone else's ready-made setup with one command, or to share yours with a team.

Superpowers, for example, installs 15 skills plus a hook that reminds the agent of the workflow when a session starts. By hand you'd copy each folder and edit the hook settings yourself. I covered standalone skills in what Agent Skills are and servers in what an MCP server is.

The Claude Code extension for VS Code and the JetBrains plugin are a different thing. They run Claude Code inside the editor and install from the editor's own extension store.

What is a Claude Code plugin marketplace?

A marketplace is a repository with a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file that lists plugins and where to download them. It's a list Claude Code reads from GitHub or another git host. You add a marketplace once, and after that its plugins install by name.

Anthropic runs three public marketplaces:

• The official claude-plugins-official, from the anthropics/claude-plugins-official repository. Claude Code adds it on its own the first time you start an interactive terminal session. On 29 October 2026 its marketplace.json listed 315 plugins: Anthropic's own, such as code-review and feature-dev, and plugins from companies such as Stripe, Sentry and Supabase. In the SkillFoxx catalog it has its own card: official plugin directory.
• The community claude-community, from the anthropics/claude-plugins-community repository. Authors submit plugins through a form, Anthropic scans them and pins almost every one to a specific commit. Details are on the Claude Plugins Community card.
• The demo claude-code-plugins, from the anthropics/claude-code repository. It's added by /plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-code, a command you'll see in older guides. Most of its plugins are also in the official marketplace, and installing them from there avoids ending up with two copies.

The claude.com/marketplace site is a separate Anthropic showcase of plugins and connectors. You don't add it with /plugin marketplace add; its Claude Code button copies the install command for you.

How do you install a plugin in Claude Code?

The steps are the same for any plugin. I'll use Superpowers from the official marketplace as the example.

1. Start claude in your project folder and run /plugin install superpowers@claude-plugins-official. In a session this opens the plugin's details and installs nothing yet.
2. Read the Will install section, which lists the plugin's commands, agents, skills, hooks and servers. For plugins in the official marketplace there is also a Context cost estimate: how many tokens the plugin adds to every message and how many its skills add once loaded.
3. Pick a scope: for you in every project, for everyone working in this repository, or for you in this repository only.
4. Read the last line of the summary. "Plugin is now active" means the plugin already works; "Run /reload-plugins to apply" asks you to reload plugins.
5. Type / and check that the plugin's commands appear in the menu. claude plugin list in your shell prints the installed plugins too.

Without a name, /plugin opens the Discover tab with search across all plugins from the marketplaces you've added. A plugin from a third-party marketplace takes two commands: first /plugin marketplace add owner/repo, then /plugin install name@marketplace. Since Claude Code v2.1.275 one line is enough with the --marketplace flag, for example /plugin install deploy-helper --marketplace your-org/plugins. The same flag works for claude plugin install in your shell from v2.1.292.

How do you install plugins from the terminal and in VS Code?

For scripts and new machines there is claude plugin install formatter@your-org --scope project, which installs a plugin without opening a session. Without --scope it installs at user scope; in this example it installs for the project. On a new machine the official marketplace isn't registered yet, so a setup script should first run claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-official.

In the VS Code extension you install plugins by typing /plugins in the prompt box, and in the Claude Desktop app through the + button and Add plugins. The terminal, Desktop and VS Code on one computer read the same settings files, so a plugin installed at user scope in one of them shows up in the other two. Cloud sessions on claude.ai/code don't load the plugins installed on your machine.

How do you uninstall or disable a Claude Code plugin?

The Installed tab in /plugin lists every plugin. Space toggles the selected one on and off, Enter opens a menu with Disable plugin, Update now and Uninstall. From the shell, claude plugin disable, claude plugin enable and claude plugin uninstall do the same.

Disabling beats uninstalling when you need a plugin now and then: the files stay on disk but don't load into the session. Uninstalling doesn't remove the dependencies a plugin brought along; claude plugin prune cleans those up. If the plugin is enabled in the project's shared settings, Claude Code asks whether to disable it just for you (the y key) or uninstall it for everyone (the u key).

How much context does a plugin use?

An enabled plugin takes part in every session, even when you don't use it. The names and descriptions of its skills, agents and commands sit in the context on every turn, and those tokens count against your usage limits. A plugin's MCP servers start with the session, and its hooks fire on their events.

You can check a plugin's weight before and after installing. Before: the Context cost estimate on its details page in the official marketplace. After: claude plugin details name, where the Always-on line shows how many tokens the plugin adds to every session. Plugins you haven't used for a while are grouped under Not used recently on the Installed tab. I'd look at that group once a month and disable whatever sits there, especially on the Pro plan, whose limits are lower than Max.

Which Claude Code plugins should you install?

On 29 October 2026 the SkillFoxx catalog lists 440 plugins. Below are the ones I'd install first, grouped by task. GitHub stars are as of the same date.

Development workflow and code review

Superpowers, 308k ★ on GitHub. Before writing code, the agent clarifies the task and agrees on the design in pieces, then writes a plan of small tasks and runs it through subagents with review. The bundle includes skills for TDD, debugging, working with branches and requesting reviews. The process is mandatory, so even a small edit goes through the agreement step. Details on the Superpowers card.

/plugin install superpowers@claude-plugins-official

Codex plugin for Claude Code by OpenAI, 34.7k ★ on GitHub. It adds /codex:review and /codex:adversarial-review: Codex reviews uncommitted changes or a branch, and the adversarial variant challenges your design decisions. You need Codex CLI installed and a ChatGPT account or an OpenAI API key, and requests use your Codex limits. Details on the Codex plugin card.

/plugin marketplace add openai/codex-plugin-cc, then /plugin install codex@openai-codex

Compound Engineering by Every, 25.8k ★ on GitHub. A loop of brainstorm, plan, work and review. At the end the agent writes down what it learned where the next task will find it. The pull request skills work only with GitHub and need gh set up. Details on the Compound Engineering card.

/plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin, then /plugin install compound-engineering

Session and usage tracking

Claude HUD, 29k ★ on GitHub. It shows the model, git branch, context usage and limit consumption in the status line, plus active tools and subagents if you want them. Token figures come straight from Claude Code. After installing, run /claude-hud:setup. Details on the Claude HUD card.

/plugin marketplace add jarrodwatts/claude-hud, then /plugin install claude-hud

Subagents for Claude Code

Awesome Claude Code Subagents by VoltAgent, 26.2k ★ on GitHub. The README lists 161+ subagents in ten categories: languages, infrastructure, security, data, product and more. The subagents can read and write files and run commands, so I'd install the one category you need rather than the whole set. Details on the Awesome Claude Code Subagents card.

Plugins for specific roles

Claude SEO, 23.8k ★ on GitHub. 26 skills and 19 agents for SEO audits: Core Web Vitals, Schema.org markup, content quality, local and AI search, PDF reports. It needs Python 3.11 to 3.14. Details on the Claude SEO card.

Knowledge Work Plugins by Anthropic, 33.8k ★ on GitHub. Plugins for sales, support, product, finance and data analysts, with commands such as /sales:call-prep. The connectors target Slack, HubSpot, Notion, Jira and similar services. Details on the Knowledge Work Plugins card.

Prowler, 15.1k ★ on GitHub. It connects the Prowler Cloud MCP server, pulls the latest compliance scan of an AWS, Azure or GCP account against CIS or PCI-DSS, fixes the findings and offers a re-scan. The plugin is in preview and needs a Prowler Cloud account. Details on the Prowler card.

What's inside Everything Claude Code?

Everything Claude Code is now called ECC. The URL github.com/affaan-m/everything-claude-code redirects to the affaan-m/ECC repository, which has 292k ★ on GitHub and an MIT license. Details on the ECC card.

What's in it, according to the README on 29 October 2026:

• 71 agents for planning, review, build fixes, security and architecture;
• 311 skills covering TDD, research, documentation, front end, data and machine learning;
• 97 commands that the author keeps as compatibility shims during the move to skills;
• hooks, rules, cross-session memory and the AgentShield security scanner.

ECC works best with Claude Code. Codex and Qoder get their own plugins, and for Cursor, OpenCode, Gemini and other tools the README promises adapters with reduced features.

How do you install Everything Claude Code?

Inside Claude Code you need two commands: /plugin marketplace add https://github.com/affaan-m/ECC, then /plugin install ecc@ecc. The other route is the setup wizard npx ecc-universal@2.2.3 setup, which needs Node.js 18 or newer, Git and Claude Code 2.1 or newer. The author asks you to pick one method, since two installs into the same environment duplicate skills and hooks.

Rules don't come with the plugin. You copy them by hand from the repository's rules folder: the common set and one set for your language. To start, I'd take the profile without hooks: npx ecc-universal@2.2.3 install --profile minimal --target claude. The full set of 311 skills and 71 agents puts a noticeable load on the context, and the minimal version makes it easier to see whether the bundle helps you.

The README warns about fake copies and lists the official sources: the affaan-m/ECC repository, the npm packages ecc-universal and ecc-agentshield, the ecc@ecc plugin and the ecc.tools site. The open source version is free; the paid ECC Pro for private repositories starts at $19 per seat per month, according to the README on 29 October 2026. AgentShield is also in the catalog as a standalone tool: AgentShield.

Are Claude Code plugins safe?

According to Anthropic's docs, an installed plugin can run any code on your computer with your user's permissions. A plugin's hooks, background monitors and MCP servers run outside the sandbox, and Claude Code's permission rules don't apply to them. Auto-update is on by default for the official marketplace, so a plugin's files can change after you've read them.

The marketplace name tells you who runs it. Claude Code accepts the names claude-plugins-official and claude-community only from anthropics repositories on GitHub, so a third-party marketplace can't pass itself off as the official one. Even in the official marketplace, though, most plugins come from partners and outside authors.

Before installing, I check four things:

1. Where the marketplace came from: claude plugin marketplace list shows it.
2. The Will install section in /plugin: whether there are hooks and MCP servers.
3. The code of the hooks and scripts in the plugin's repository, especially network calls and file access outside the project.
4. The access level on the SkillFoxx card and the reasons behind it. For Superpowers, those are the session start hook and long autonomous subagent runs.

Which plugin for which task?

• Discipline in development: Superpowers, with a plan, tests and review before code.
• A second opinion on code: the Codex plugin, a review by another model without leaving Claude Code.
• A full set of agents and skills: ECC, starting with the minimal profile.
• Running out of limits too early: Claude HUD keeps context and usage visible.
• Narrow helpers for your stack: Awesome Claude Code Subagents, one category at a time.
• An SEO audit of your site: Claude SEO with parallel agents and a report.
• Office roles without code: Knowledge Work Plugins for sales, support and finance.

Short glossary

Plugin: a bundle of skills, agents, hooks and servers that installs and updates as one unit.

Marketplace: a repository with a list of plugins in a marketplace.json file.

Hook: a command Claude Code runs on an event, for example before a tool call.

Subagent: a helper with its own context that Claude hands part of a task to.

Install scope: who the plugin is enabled for. You in every project, the repository's team, or you in one repository.

Where to go next

Open the plugins section of the catalog, pick one plugin for the task in front of you and install it for a single project. Any entry also installs with npx skillfoxx add plugins/superpowers, which shows the access level and install steps before it changes anything. Standalone skills are collected in my list of the best Claude Code skills.