Claude Code Plugin Marketplace Template

Create and distribute Claude Code plugins for your team or community. This GitHub template provides everything you need to build a plugin marketplace — from scaffolding and validation to CI/CD automation.

Why Use This Template?

• Skip the boilerplate — Pre-configured marketplace structure, plugin manifests, and GitHub Actions validation
• Full plugin development toolkit — Commands for scaffolding plugins, adding components (commands, skills, agents, hooks), and validating before release
• Team-ready distribution — Configure automatic marketplace installation for team projects
• Best practices built-in — Comprehensive documentation, examples, and guided workflows

What's Included

Component	Description
Marketplace Configuration	.claude-plugin/marketplace.json following the official schema
Plugin Development Toolkit	plugin-development plugin with 7 slash commands, a plugin-authoring skill for ambient guidance, and a reviewer agent
Example Plugin	hello-world plugin demonstrating proper structure and best practices
CI/CD Workflows	GitHub Actions for automated plugin validation on every push and PR
Documentation	Complete guides for plugins, hooks, settings, commands, skills, and sub-agents

Quick Start

1. Create Your Marketplace

Click "Use this template" on GitHub, then clone your new repository:

git clone https://github.com/your-org/your-marketplace-name.git
cd your-marketplace-name

2. Customize the Marketplace

Update .claude-plugin/marketplace.json with your organization details:

{
  "name": "my-team-marketplace",
  "owner": {
    "name": "Your Organization",
    "email": "[email protected]"
  },
  "metadata": {
    "description": "A curated collection of Claude Code plugins for our team",
    "version": "1.0.0"
  },
  "plugins": []
}

3. Install the Plugin Development Toolkit

# Start Claude Code
claude

# Add your local marketplace
/plugin marketplace add .

# Install the development toolkit
/plugin install plugin-development@my-team-marketplace

4. Create Your First Plugin

# Scaffold a new plugin
/plugin-development:init my-awesome-plugin

# Add components
/plugin-development:add-command my-command "Description of what it does"
/plugin-development:add-skill my-skill "Use when working with..."

# Validate before publishing
/plugin-development:validate

Plugin Development Commands

The plugin-development plugin provides these commands:

Command	Description
/plugin-development:init [name]	Scaffold a new plugin with standard structure
/plugin-development:add-command [name] [desc]	Add a new slash command
/plugin-development:add-skill [name] [desc]	Add a new skill with SKILL.md
/plugin-development:add-agent [name] [desc]	Add a new sub-agent
/plugin-development:add-hook [event] [matcher]	Add a hook configuration
/plugin-development:validate	Validate plugin structure and configuration
/plugin-development:test-local	Create dev marketplace for local testing

Repository Structure

├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── marketplace.json          # Marketplace configuration
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── validate-plugins.yml  # CI/CD validation
├── docs/                         # Comprehensive documentation
│   ├── plugins.md                # Plugin development guide
│   ├── plugins-reference.md      # Technical specifications
│   ├── plugin-marketplaces.md    # Marketplace management
│   ├── hooks.md                  # Event-driven automation
│   ├── settings.md               # Configuration options
│   ├── slash-commands.md         # Command system reference
│   ├── skills.md                 # Agent skills guide
│   └── sub-agents.md             # Sub-agent system
└── plugins/
    ├── hello-world/              # Example plugin
    └── plugin-development/       # Development toolkit

Team Distribution

Configure automatic marketplace installation for your team by adding .claude/settings.json to your projects:

{
  "extraKnownMarketplaces": {
    "my-team-marketplace": {
      "source": {
        "source": "github",
        "repo": "your-org/your-marketplace-name"
      }
    }
  }
}

When team members trust the repository folder, Claude Code automatically installs the marketplace. See Configure team marketplaces for details.

Installing from GitHub

Once your marketplace is published to GitHub, users can install plugins with:

# Add the marketplace
/plugin marketplace add your-org/your-marketplace-name

# Install a plugin
/plugin install plugin-name@your-marketplace-name

Local Testing

Test your plugins before publishing:

# Navigate to your marketplace
cd your-marketplace-name

# Start Claude Code
claude

# Add local marketplace
/plugin marketplace add .

# Install and test a plugin
/plugin install hello-world@my-team-marketplace
/hello World

For iterative development:

# After making changes
/plugin-development:validate
/plugin uninstall plugin-name@my-team-marketplace
/plugin install plugin-name@my-team-marketplace

Uninstalling

Remove the marketplace and its plugins from Claude Code:

# Remove a specific plugin
/plugin uninstall plugin-name@my-team-marketplace

# Remove the marketplace entirely
/plugin marketplace remove my-team-marketplace

To completely remove, delete the cloned repository directory.

Creating Plugins Manually

If you prefer manual setup over the scaffolding commands:

1. Create Plugin Directory

mkdir -p plugins/my-plugin/.claude-plugin
mkdir -p plugins/my-plugin/commands

2. Add Plugin Manifest

Create plugins/my-plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json:

{
  "name": "my-plugin",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Description of what your plugin does",
  "author": {
    "name": "Your Name",
    "email": "[email protected]"
  },
  "license": "MIT",
  "keywords": ["keyword1", "keyword2"]
}

3. Create a Command

Create plugins/my-plugin/commands/my-command.md:

---
description: Brief description of what the command does
argument-hint: [arg1] [arg2]
---

# My Command

Instructions for Claude on how to execute this command.

## Steps

1. First step
2. Second step
3. Third step

4. Register in Marketplace

Add to .claude-plugin/marketplace.json:

{
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "my-plugin",
      "description": "Description of what your plugin does",
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "author": {
        "name": "Your Name"
      },
      "source": "./plugins/my-plugin",
      "category": "utilities",
      "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"]
    }
  ]
}

Documentation

Local Guides (in docs/)

Guide	Description
Plugin Development	Complete guide to creating plugins
Plugin Reference	Technical specifications and schemas
Plugin Marketplaces	Marketplace creation and management
Hooks	Event-driven automation
Settings	Configuration and customization
Slash Commands	Command system reference
Skills	Agent capabilities and expertise
Sub-Agents	Specialized AI assistants

Official Claude Code Documentation

• Plugins Overview — Plugin development guide
• Plugin Marketplaces — Marketplace management
• Plugins Reference — Technical specifications
• Slash Commands — Command development

Example Plugins

hello-world

A minimal example demonstrating proper plugin structure:

/plugin install hello-world@my-team-marketplace
/hello World
# Output: Hello, World! 👋

plugin-development

The comprehensive toolkit used throughout this template:

• 7 slash commands for scaffolding and validation
• plugin-authoring skill for ambient guidance
• plugin-reviewer agent for release readiness audits
• Automated hooks for validation and formatting

See the plugin-development README for complete documentation.

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-plugin)
3. Make your changes
4. Run validation (/plugin-development:validate)
5. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing plugin')
6. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-plugin)
7. Open a Pull Request

Acknowledgments

Built for Claude Code by Anthropic.

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

Resources

• Claude Code Documentation
• Anthropic Discord — Community support
• Claude Code GitHub — Official repository