The best Claude Code plugins, and how to install them
What a Claude Code plugin is, how to add a marketplace and install one, and a short list of the best Claude Code plugins by job, each checked at its source.
- For
- Claude Code users deciding which plugins to add
- Written for
- Claude Code
- Time
- 8 min read · updated Nov 10, 2026
The short answer
Run /plugin in Claude Code to browse Anthropic’s official marketplace, or /plugin install <name>@claude-plugins-official to open one plugin and pick a scope. Good first picks: code-review and commit-commands for git work, a language-server plugin such as typescript-lsp, context7 for current library docs, playwright for the browser, and frontend-design for UI. Install few: every enabled plugin adds to every session.
Lists of the best Claude Code plugins tend to rank by popularity. This one is sorted by job, and every plugin in it is listed in Anthropic’s official marketplace, claude-plugins-official, which we read on 11 November 2026. Commands come from Anthropic’s Claude Code docs. Where a plugin needs something else on your machine, we say so.
What a Claude Code plugin is
Anthropic’s docs define a plugin as “a directory of skills, agents, hooks, MCP servers, or other components that Claude Code installs and loads as one unit.” A skill is one of those components: a SKILL.md file Claude loads when it is relevant. You don’t need a plugin to use a skill, since a folder in ~/.claude/skills/ works in every project. A plugin is how you install someone else’s whole setup with one command and get updates from its marketplace. Skills vs prompts, commands and plugins compares them side by side.
How to install a Claude Code plugin
Step 1: Open the plugin
In a Claude Code session, run
/plugin installwith the plugin and marketplace. It opens the plugin’s details rather than installing straight away. Run/pluginalone to browse the Discover tab instead.Claude CodeStep 2: Read what it will install
The details pane lists the commands, agents, skills, hooks and MCP and LSP servers it adds. For plugins in the official marketplace it also shows a Context cost: what it adds to every turn, and what it adds when used.
Step 3: Choose a scope
User puts it in every project on this machine. Project turns it on for everyone in the repository through
.claude/settings.json. Local is for you, in this repository only.Step 4: Reload and check
If the summary says
Run /reload-plugins to apply., Claude Code runs the reload for you. Type/and look for the plugin’s commands, such as/commit-commands:commit.
From your shell, without a session, the same install is one line. It installs at user scope unless you pass --scope project or --scope local, and the plugin loads the next time Claude Code starts.
Add a marketplace
A marketplace is a catalog: a repository with a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json that lists plugins and where to fetch them. Claude Code adds the official one the first time you start an interactive terminal session. Everything else you add once:
Anthropic also runs a community marketplace of third-party plugins submitted by their authors. Add it with /plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community and install with the @claude-community suffix. The older claude-code-plugins marketplace in anthropics/claude-code is deprecated, so skip tutorials that tell you to add it. Anthropic says it doesn’t review third-party marketplaces.
The best Claude Code plugins, by job
All of these are in claude-plugins-official, so each installs with /plugin install <name>@claude-plugins-official. Where the author is not Anthropic, the table says who it is.
Code review and git
Planning and building features
Code intelligence
Language-server plugins give Claude go-to-definition, find references and error checking. There is one per language, among them typescript-lsp, pyright-lsp, gopls-lsp, rust-analyzer-lsp and clangd-lsp. The plugin connects to the server but doesn’t bring it: the typescript-lsp README, for example, asks you to install typescript-language-server with npm first.
Docs, browser and services
Tuning Claude Code itself
claude-code-setupreads your codebase and suggests hooks, skills, MCP servers and subagents for it.claude-md-managementaudits your CLAUDE.md files and keeps project memory current.hookifyturns a rule you write in Markdown, or a pattern from the conversation, into a hook.security-guidancewarns on risky edits and reviews Claude’s changes for injection, XSS, hardcoded secrets and other classes of bug.skill-creatorwrites and edits skills, and runs evals to check they trigger.
Where visual-output plugins and skills fit
Most plugins help you write and ship code. A few make something you look at:
frontend-design(Anthropic) gives Claude design direction for new UI. See the frontend-design skill.playground(Anthropic) builds single-file HTML explorers with controls and a live preview.hyperframes(HeyGen) teaches Claude to write HTML compositions and render them to MP4. Its README also gives its own marketplace:claude plugin marketplace add heygen-com/hyperframes.canva(Canva) creates, edits and resizes Canva designs through Canva’s MCP server.
A skill that ships a finished look doesn’t need a plugin at all. Lookbk’s skills are SKILL.md folders with their own scripts, so they install into ~/.claude/skills and run as /<skill>. Many of our video skills build on HyperFrames, and each one carries a fixed design, so what you get follows the look shown on its page. Can Claude make videos? explains how this works.
Before you install a plugin
Anthropic’s security page is blunt: a plugin you install “can execute arbitrary code on your machine with your user privileges.” Hooks and MCP servers run outside Claude Code’s sandbox, and a plugin’s bin/ folder is added to the Bash tool’s PATH. A marketplace’s name tells you who publishes the catalog, not what each plugin does.
After installing, claude plugin details <name> prints what the installed copy contains and how many tokens it adds to every session. The same habits apply to plain skills: see Safety checks before running a skill.
Keep the list short
An enabled plugin is part of every session, not only the ones where you use it. The names and descriptions of its skills and agents sit in Claude’s context on every turn, its MCP servers run alongside the session and its hooks fire on their events. The Installed tab in /plugin groups plugins you haven’t used recently, so you can disable them with claude plugin disable <name> without uninstalling.
Common questions
- What is the difference between a Claude Code plugin and a skill?
- A skill is one
SKILL.mdfolder of instructions. A plugin is a package that can hold skills, subagents, hooks, MCP servers and language servers, installed and updated as one unit from a marketplace. - How do I install a Claude Code plugin?
- In a session, run
/plugin install <name>@<marketplace>, review the details and choose a scope. From a shell, runclaude plugin install <name>@<marketplace>. Plugins outside the official marketplace need/plugin marketplace add <source>first. - Where can I browse every Claude Code plugin?
- Run
/pluginand use the Discover tab, browse claude.com/marketplace/plugins, or read.claude-plugin/marketplace.jsonin theanthropics/claude-plugins-officialrepository, which is the catalog itself. - Are Claude Code plugins safe?
- Anthropic says a plugin can run arbitrary code with your user privileges and that it doesn’t review third-party marketplaces. Read what a plugin installs, especially its hooks, MCP servers and
bin/files, before you install it. - Do plugins update on their own?
- Plugins from
claude-plugins-officialupdate automatically by default. Community and third-party marketplaces don’t, until you turn on auto-update for them in the Marketplaces tab of/plugin.
Sources
What this guide says about other companies’ tools comes from their own documentation, checked on Nov 10, 2026.
- Claude Code: plugins overview (opens in a new tab)
- Claude Code: install and manage plugins (opens in a new tab)
- Claude Code: Anthropic’s marketplaces (opens in a new tab)
- Claude Code: plugin security and trust (opens in a new tab)
- anthropics/claude-plugins-official README (opens in a new tab)
- anthropics/claude-plugins-official: marketplace.json (opens in a new tab)
- claude-plugins-official: code-review README (opens in a new tab)
- claude-plugins-official: typescript-lsp README (opens in a new tab)
- Claude Marketplace: plugins (opens in a new tab)
- obra/superpowers README (opens in a new tab)
- heygen-com/hyperframes README (opens in a new tab)
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