Create and distribute a plugin marketplace

A plugin marketplace is a catalog that lets you distribute plugins to others. Marketplaces provide centralized discovery, version tracking, automatic updates, and support for multiple source types, including git repositories and local paths. This guide shows you how to create your own marketplace to share plugins with your team or community. Looking to install plugins from an existing marketplace? See Discover and install prebuilt plugins.

Overview

Creating and distributing a marketplace involves:

Create plugins: build one or more plugins with skills, agents, hooks, MCP servers, or LSP servers. This guide assumes you already have plugins to distribute; see Create plugins for details on how to create them.
Create the marketplace file: define a marketplace.json that lists your plugins and where to find them. See Create the marketplace file.
Host the marketplace: push to GitHub, GitLab, or another git host. See Host and distribute marketplaces.
Share with users: users add your marketplace with /plugin marketplace add and install individual plugins. See Discover and install plugins.

Once your marketplace is live, you can update it by pushing changes to your repository. Users refresh their local copy with /plugin marketplace update.

Walkthrough: create a local marketplace

This example creates a marketplace with one plugin: a quality-review skill for code reviews. You’ll create the directory structure, add a skill, create the plugin manifest and marketplace catalog, then install and test it.

Create the directory structure

mkdir -p my-marketplace/.claude-plugin
mkdir -p my-marketplace/plugins/quality-review-plugin/.claude-plugin
mkdir -p my-marketplace/plugins/quality-review-plugin/skills/quality-review

Create the skill

Create a SKILL.md file that defines what the quality-review skill does.

my-marketplace/plugins/quality-review-plugin/skills/quality-review/SKILL.md

---
description: Review code for bugs, security, and performance
---

Review the code I've selected or the recent changes for:
- Potential bugs or edge cases
- Security concerns
- Performance issues
- Readability improvements

Be concise and actionable.

Create the plugin manifest

Create a plugin.json file that describes the plugin. The manifest goes in the .claude-plugin/ directory.

my-marketplace/plugins/quality-review-plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json

{
  "name": "quality-review-plugin",
  "description": "Adds a quality-review skill for quick code reviews",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "author": {
    "name": "Your Name"
  }
}

Setting version means users only receive updates when you change this field, so bump it on every release. If you omit version and host this marketplace in git, every commit automatically counts as a new version. See Version resolution to choose the right approach.

Create the marketplace file

Create the marketplace catalog that lists your plugin.

my-marketplace/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json

{
  "name": "my-plugins",
  "owner": {
    "name": "Your Name"
  },
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "quality-review-plugin",
      "source": "./plugins/quality-review-plugin",
      "description": "Adds a quality-review skill for quick code reviews"
    }
  ]
}

Add and install

From the directory that contains my-marketplace, start Claude Code and run the following commands. The install command opens a plugin details view where you select an installation scope to confirm the install. Check the install summary: if it reports Run /reload-plugins to activate., run that command.

Setup and access

Deployment

Gateways

Usage and costs

Plugin distribution

Security and data

Adoption

Create and distribute a plugin marketplace

Overview

Walkthrough: create a local marketplace

​Overview

​Walkthrough: create a local marketplace

Overview

Walkthrough: create a local marketplace