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Publishing a Claude Code plugin means listing it in a marketplace, a JSON catalog that lists plugins and where to fetch each one, so that other people can install it by name and receive your updates. You can run your own marketplace or submit your plugin to Anthropic’s community marketplace. To share a plugin without publishing it, send people the plugin’s directory or a .zip of it to load themselves. This page is for the author of a working plugin who is ready to share it.
These cases are covered on other pages:
Start with Choose how to distribute to compare the distribution options. If you already know your route, go to Prepare your plugin for release, then follow your route’s section for what to tell your users and how they receive your updates.

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Choose how to distribute

Choose a distribution option based on who needs to install the plugin: Auto-update is a per-marketplace setting on the user’s side that fetches new versions in the background.

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Prepare your plugin for release

The name, the version, validation, and an install from a marketplace decide whether a release works for the people who install it. Check them before the first release and again before each later one.
1

Choose a permanent name

Users install, enable, and configure your plugin by name@marketplace, so a renamed plugin is a different plugin to every existing install. Choose a kebab-case name such as deploy-helper, because claude plugin validate warns on other forms, and treat it as permanent. Set displayName in plugin.json for the label users see.
2

Decide how you'll version

If you set version in plugin.json and later push commits without changing it, claude plugin update prints <name> is already at the latest version (1.0.0). and users keep the old copy. Either increment version on every release, or omit it in a git-hosted marketplace so Claude Code uses the commit SHA instead. See Versions and updates.
3

Validate

In your shell, run claude plugin validate --strict ./your-plugin. A clean run prints ✔ Validation passed.
  • In CI: keep --strict, which also fails the run with exit code 1 on warnings such as an unknown manifest field or a missing version. Drop --strict if you chose to omit version in the previous step.
  • Paths: validation reports component paths that don’t start with ./. Inside hook commands and MCP server configs, refer to files as ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/.... See path rules.
4

Install it from a local marketplace

In your shell, add a local marketplace that lists the plugin with claude plugin marketplace add ./path-to-marketplace, install the plugin from it, and start a session to confirm it loads.
5

Fill in the metadata users see

Set description, author, homepage, and repository in plugin.json, and add a README.md at the plugin root. homepage must parse as a URL. The manifest reference lists every field.
6

Run your eval suite

If you have an eval suite, run claude plugin eval in your shell. It runs the plugin’s test cases and scores the results, which catches regressions when you change the plugin. See Test plugins with evals.

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Share a plugin without a marketplace

If the plugin is in a git repository, people can clone it and load the checkout, or start Claude Code from their shell with --plugin-url pointed at a .zip you attach to a release. To get your next version they pull or download again. If it isn’t in a repository, send them the directory or a .zip of it. They load it in one of two ways:
  • For one session: they start Claude Code from their shell with claude --plugin-dir ./deploy-helper, where the path is the clone, the unzipped folder, or the .zip itself. See Flags that load a plugin for one session.
  • For every session: they move the plugin directory, with its .claude-plugin/plugin.json, under ~/.claude/skills/ so Claude Code loads it in every session.
Adding a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json to that same repository is what lets people install by name and update with a command; see Publish through your own marketplace.

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Ship a plugin with your own tool

If you maintain a CLI or SDK, publish the plugin in a marketplace and have your installer or post-install message run or print the two commands a user needs: claude plugin marketplace add <source>, then claude plugin install <name>@<marketplace>. For in-session discovery when someone uses your tool, see Recommend your plugin from your CLI.

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Publish through your own marketplace

Your own marketplace is a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file that lists your plugin, added to a git repository. Once the file is in the repository, the plugin is published, with no submission form. You can keep the file in the plugin’s own repository or in a separate one.

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Add the marketplace file to your repository

To publish from the plugin’s own repository, save the marketplace file beside plugin.json in .claude-plugin/, with one entry whose source is "./", the repository root. Give the entry the same name as plugin.json, per Keep the entry name and the manifest name the same:
.claude-plugin/marketplace.json
In your shell, run claude plugin validate . in the repository to check the file before you push. Create a marketplace covers the layout with several plugins in one repository.

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Control who can install

Anyone who can clone the repository can install from it, so if the repository is private, the marketplace is private too. For hosts other than a git repository, see Host a marketplace. To reach everyone at a company, including people who don’t use git, see Roll out to a whole company.

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Tell users how to install

Tell your users to add the marketplace and then install the plugin from their shell, replacing the source and names with yours:
  • Add the marketplace once: claude plugin marketplace add your-org/your-marketplace, where the argument is a GitHub owner/repo shorthand, a URL, or a path
  • Install the plugin: claude plugin install deploy-helper@your-marketplace
  • Or do both from inside a session: /plugin install deploy-helper --marketplace your-org/your-marketplace. Requires Claude Code v2.1.275 or later. See Add a marketplace and install in one command

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Ship updates to users

Users receive a release when they ask for it or when auto-update is on for your marketplace:
  • On request: claude plugin update deploy-helper@your-marketplace in the user’s shell refreshes the marketplace and installs the new copy when your plugin’s version has changed
  • Auto-update: off by default for your marketplace. See Turn on auto-update. Once on, it does the same as claude plugin update on a delay after the session starts
Install plugins covers the user-side commands, and when auto-update runs covers the timing.

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Submit to the community marketplace

Anthropic’s community marketplace, claude-community, is the public marketplace that lists plugins submitted through the plugin directory submission form. Users add the community marketplace in a Claude Code session with /plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community and install from it as @claude-community. For how the community marketplace differs from the official marketplace, see Anthropic’s marketplaces. To submit your plugin to the community marketplace, use one of the in-app forms: The claude.ai form requires a Team or Enterprise organization and the Directory permission, which Owners hold by default. Individual authors who aren’t part of a Team or Enterprise organization can use the Console form instead. In your shell, run claude plugin validate ./your-plugin locally before you submit, replacing ./your-plugin with the path to your plugin directory. When validation passes, Claude Code prints ✔ Validation passed, or ✔ Validation passed with warnings if there are warnings. Warnings don’t fail validation; add --strict to treat them as errors. Listed plugins appear in the anthropics/claude-plugins-community catalog, in nearly every case pinned to a specific commit SHA. There can be a delay between submitting and your plugin appearing in marketplace.json. To check whether your plugin is installable yet, search for its name in the community catalog. The official marketplace, claude-plugins-official, doesn’t take submissions through these forms. If you work with an Anthropic partner contact, ask them about an official-marketplace listing.

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Ship updates, renames, and removals

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Release a new version

If you publish through your own marketplace and your plugin.json sets version, increment it and push. Users who run claude plugin update or have auto-update on then receive the new version, as described under Ship updates to users.

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Tag a release

Tag the release in git when other plugins declare a version range on yours, because those ranges resolve against tags. Otherwise you don’t need a tag. To tag, run claude plugin tag in your shell from the plugin directory. It creates a {name}--v{version} tag. Add --push to send the tag to origin. The plugin tag reference lists its flags.

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Rename or remove a plugin

Never change a published plugin’s name. After a rename, users who already installed it lose the plugin, because their install is recorded under the old name. A renames entry in your marketplace file migrates them instead. Change displayName when you want a different label. If a rename is unavoidable, use the marketplace file’s renames map so that existing installs migrate instead of failing with Plugin "<name>" not found in marketplace. To remove a plugin from the marketplace, or for the full renames details, see Rename or remove a plugin on the hosting page. The marketplace reference has the field.

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Declare dependencies

If your plugin needs another plugin from the same marketplace to be enabled, list it in the dependencies array of plugin.json. Each entry is a bare name or an object with a semver version range. When a user installs your plugin, Claude Code installs and enables the dependency too. Plugin dependencies covers the range syntax, cross-marketplace dependencies, and how users prune dependencies they no longer need.

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Next steps