marketplace-builder

Marketplace Builder

A comprehensive guide to creating Claude Code marketplaces and plugins for distributing commands, agents, skills, hooks, and MCP servers.

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Quick Reference

Marketplace vs Plugin Distinction

Critical concept: These are NOT the same thing.

Concept	What It Is	Analogy
Marketplace	JSON catalog listing where plugins live	Library catalog
Plugin	Packaged collection of components	Book
Components	Commands, agents, skills, hooks, MCP servers	Chapters

Relationship: One marketplace → many plugins → many components per plugin

Key insight: Marketplaces don't HOST plugins. They INDEX them. Plugins can live anywhere (GitHub, GitLab, private git, local paths).

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JSON Schema Quick Reference

Minimal marketplace.json:

{
  "name": "marketplace-name",
  "owner": {"name": "Owner Name"},
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "plugin-name",
      "source": "./path-to-plugin",
      "description": "What this plugin does",
      "version": "1.0.0"
    }
  ]
}

Minimal plugin.json (inside .claude-plugin/):

{
  "name": "plugin-name",
  "description": "What this plugin does",
  "version": "1.0.0"
}

Team settings.json (inside .claude/):

{
  "extraKnownMarketplaces": {
    "marketplace-name": {
      "source": {"source": "github", "repo": "owner/repo"}
    }
  },
  "enabledPlugins": {
    "plugin-name@marketplace-name": true
  }
}

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Source Types

Type	Syntax	Best For
GitHub	{"source": "github", "repo": "owner/repo"}	Public plugins
Git URL	{"source": "git", "url": "https://..."}	Private/GitLab
Directory	{"source": "directory", "path": "./path"}	Monorepo
Relative	"./path"	Shorthand for directory

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Command Reference

# Add a marketplace
/plugin marketplace add owner/repo
/plugin marketplace add https://gitlab.com/org/repo.git
/plugin marketplace add ./local-marketplace

# List marketplaces
/plugin marketplace list

# Update marketplace catalog
/plugin marketplace update marketplace-name

# Browse and install plugins
/plugin                                    # Interactive browser
/plugin install plugin-name@marketplace    # Direct install

# Manage plugins
/plugin enable plugin@marketplace
/plugin disable plugin@marketplace
/plugin uninstall plugin@marketplace

# Validate structure
claude plugin validate .