claude-plugins-official

1. Project Overview

claude-plugins-official is Anthropic's official, curated directory of Claude Code Plugins — a single marketplace that packages slash commands, specialized agents, skills, hooks, and MCP servers into installable units, solving the problem of discovering and safely distributing trustworthy extensions for Claude Code.

2. Background & Positioning

Claude Code's plugin system lets developers bundle commands, agents, hooks, and MCP server configurations into one shareable, versioned package. As the ecosystem grew, developers needed a reliable place to find plugins that were vetted for quality and security, rather than hunting across scattered repositories.

claude-plugins-official was created to be that trusted entry point. It is maintained directly by Anthropic and organized into two clear tiers: plugins/, containing extensions built and maintained in-house, and external_plugins/, containing third-party integrations from partners and the community that have passed a quality and security review before inclusion.

Compared to community-run plugin lists or ad-hoc GitHub topic searches, this repository differentiates itself through official maintenance, a consistent manifest format (.claude-plugin/plugin.json + marketplace.json), and a review bar for anything accepted from outside contributors — making it the default, low-risk starting point for extending Claude Code.

3. Feature Categories

• 🛡️ Security — Guardrail and scanning plugins. Representative examples: claude-security (vulnerability and unsafe-pattern detection), secure-coding guidance, OWASP-aligned checks. Purpose: catch unsafe patterns while editing and flag known vulnerability classes before they ship.
• ✅ Code Review — Structured review workflows. Examples: code-review, code-simplifier, PR-quality checkers. Purpose: give Claude repeatable checklists for tests, types, regressions, and simplification during review.
• 🧪 Testing — Test authoring and repair tooling. Examples: test-writer-fixer and related test-generation plugins. Purpose: automatically write, run, and fix unit tests alongside code changes.
• ⚙️ DevOps — Build, deploy, and operational tooling. Purpose: wire Claude into CI/CD, infrastructure, and release workflows.
• 🔌 External Integrations — Third-party and partner plugins under external_plugins/ (e.g. GitHub, Context7). Purpose: connect Claude Code to external platforms and documentation sources via MCP.

4. Key Highlights

• Official curation — every plugin is either authored by Anthropic or has passed a documented review before appearing in the marketplace, reducing supply-chain risk for teams adopting plugins.
• One-command installation — plugins install directly with /plugin install <plugin-name>@claude-plugins-official from inside Claude Code, no manual file copying required.
• Unified packaging format — every plugin bundles commands, agents, skills, hooks, and MCP servers behind a single manifest, so installing one plugin can extend Claude Code across several surfaces at once.
• Clear internal/external separation — the plugins/ vs external_plugins/ split makes trust boundaries explicit at a glance.
• Marketplace-driven discovery — the root .claude-plugin/marketplace.json acts as a machine-readable catalog, powering the in-app /plugin Discover tab.
• Open contribution path — third-party authors can submit plugins for review and inclusion, keeping the catalog community-extensible without sacrificing the quality bar.

5. Use Cases by Role

• General developers — install code-review or code-simplifier to get structured, repeatable feedback on pull requests without configuring anything by hand.
• DevOps/SRE — use DevOps-category plugins to integrate Claude Code into build and deployment pipelines and standardize operational checks across teams.
• Security engineers — adopt claude-security and related scanning plugins to enforce secure-coding guardrails during everyday editing sessions.
• Data/research scientists — leverage MCP-based external plugins (e.g. documentation lookup via Context7) to bring live reference data into Claude's context while working on analysis code.

6. Getting Started

Find what you need — browse the catalog inside Claude Code:

/plugin

then open the Discover tab, or review .claude-plugin/marketplace.json directly in the repository.

Install a plugin — once you know the plugin name:

/plugin install <plugin-name>@claude-plugins-official

Contribute a plugin — fork the repository, add your plugin under external_plugins/ following the existing manifest structure, and open a pull request against:

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official

7. Project Structure

claude-plugins-official/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── marketplace.json     # Root catalog listing all installable plugins
├── plugins/                 # Plugins authored and maintained by Anthropic
│   ├── code-simplifier/
│   ├── claude-security/
│   └── .../.claude-plugin/plugin.json
└── external_plugins/         # Reviewed third-party / partner plugins
    ├── github/
    └── context7/

Each individual plugin directory contains its own .claude-plugin/plugin.json manifest declaring name, version, and author, alongside optional commands/, agents/, skills/, hooks/, and .mcp.json files that define its actual behavior.

8. Related Ecosystem

• Claude Code — the CLI/IDE agent this marketplace extends; plugins are meaningless without it.
• Model Context Protocol (MCP) — the standard many plugins use to expose external tools (e.g. GitHub, Context7) to Claude.
• claude-plugins-community — a related, more permissive marketplace hosting additional third-party plugins that pass automated validation.
• Anthropic developer documentation — the plugin reference and discovery guides that describe manifest schema and installation flow in depth.

9. License

Licensed under Apache-2.0.

• ✅ Free to use, copy, modify, and distribute, including for commercial purposes.
• ✅ You may create and distribute your own derivative plugins based on this code.
• ❌ No warranty is provided; the license disclaims liability for damages arising from use.
• ℹ️ Redistributed or modified versions must retain the original copyright and license notices, and note significant changes made to the files.

10. FAQ

Q: How do I install a plugin from this repository?
A: Run /plugin install <plugin-name>@claude-plugins-official inside Claude Code, or add the marketplace first if it isn't registered.

Q: What's the difference between plugins/ and external_plugins/?
A: plugins/ contains extensions built and maintained directly by Anthropic; external_plugins/ contains third-party and partner submissions that passed a quality and security review.

Q: Can I submit my own plugin?
A: Yes — third-party authors can submit plugins for review; see the repository's contribution guidelines at github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official.

Q: Do plugins require Claude Code specifically, or do they work standalone?
A: Plugins are designed to run inside Claude Code and rely on its command, agent, hook, and MCP infrastructure — they are not standalone tools.

Q: Where can I see all available plugins at once?
A: Check .claude-plugin/marketplace.json in the repository root, or open the Discover tab via /plugin in Claude Code.

11. Quick Links

• Repository: github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official
• Marketplace catalog: marketplace.json
• Plugins reference docs: code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins-reference
• Discover plugins guide: code.claude.com/docs/en/discover-plugins

12. Summary

claude-plugins-official gives the global Claude Code community a single, trustworthy place to discover and install high-quality extensions, backed by Anthropic's own curation and a clear review process for third-party contributions. Developers, DevOps engineers, and security teams alike can adopt it to standardize how their organizations extend Claude Code — without the risk of pulling in unreviewed, unmaintained code from random repositories.