Plugin marketplaces allow Team and Enterprise plan owners to distribute curated plugins to everyone in their organization through Claude Cowork. You create a marketplace, add plugins to it, and control exactly which plugins your team members can see and use.
Owners and Primary Owners of Team and Enterprise plans can manage organization plugins on Claude Desktop.
Requirements: Cowork and Skills must both be enabled for your organization before you can use plugin marketplaces.
There are two ways to add plugins to a marketplace:
Manual upload—Upload individual plugin ZIP files through the admin UI. Best for quick iteration, one-off tools, or teams that don't use GitHub for plugin development.
GitHub syncing—Connect a private GitHub repository and Cowork automatically syncs plugins from it. Best when multiple developers collaborate on plugins or you want version-controlled updates.
You can use both approaches in parallel—for example, a GitHub-synced marketplace for your core plugins and a separate manual marketplace for ad-hoc tools.
Set up a manual marketplace
Open Claude Desktop and go to Organization settings > Plugins.
Click “Add plugins” and select “Upload a file” as the source.
If this is your first time setting up a marketplace, “Upload to a new marketplace” will be auto-selected.
You’ll be able to choose “Add to an existing marketplace” when uploading plugins moving forward.
Enter a name for your marketplace.
Either drag your files in, or click the upload prompt and select your file.
Note: The file must be a valid .zip under 50 MB.
Repeat for each plugin you want to add.
Click “Upload” to add your plugins to a new marketplace.
If you upload a plugin with the same name as an existing one, it overwrites the previous version automatically—no need to delete the old one first.
Set up a GitHub-synced marketplace
GitHub syncing lets you manage plugins as code in a repository. When you push changes, you can trigger a sync to update your marketplace—either manually or automatically.
Prepare your repository
Your repository must be private or internal—public repos aren't allowed for organization marketplaces. Repos hosted on custom GitHub Enterprise Server instances aren't supported. Your repo must be hosted on github.com.
For details on plugin structure and formatting, see the plugin reference documentation.
Additional resources:
Connect the repository
Make sure both Cowork and Skills are enabled for your organization.
Go to Organization settings > Plugins.
Click "Add plugin" and select "GitHub" as the source.
Enter the repository in
owner/repoformat (for example,acme-corp/claude-plugins).
Your personal GitHub token is verified to confirm you have access, then Cowork uses its GitHub App installation token for sync operations.
Can't see your repo? Make sure the Claude GitHub App is installed in that repository.
How syncing works
An initial sync runs automatically when you connect a repository. After that, organization owners can opt-in to continued automatic updates per marketplace by going to Organization settings > Plugins (under Libraries), clicking the menu button in the upper right corner of the marketplace, then toggling "Sync automatically" on:
The GitHub marketplace will then be auto-synced whenever a PR is merged to that repo. You can also trigger syncs manually by clicking “Update” on the marketplace.
During a sync, Cowork compares the latest commit in your repo against the last-synced commit. If nothing has changed, the sync is skipped. If there are changes, Cowork reads the manifest, validates each plugin, and replaces all plugins in the marketplace with the current state of the repo. Syncs can take up to 30 minutes depending on the number of plugins.
Important: If a sync fails, plugins may be temporarily removed for your team members. If this happens, check the failure message, fix the issue in your repo, push the update, and trigger the sync again. Once the sync succeeds, verify that your installation preferences are still set correctly — they may have been reset during the failure.
Control plugin distribution
Once your marketplace has plugins, you control how they're distributed using installation preferences. For each plugin, you can set one of four options:
Preference | What it does | What members see |
Installed by default | Automatically installed for all org members | The plugin appears in their installed list without any action. Members can uninstall if they choose. |
Available for install | Listed in the plugin catalog | Members see it when browsing plugins and can install it themselves. |
Not available | Hidden from the catalog entirely | Members can't see or install the plugin. Useful for staging or deprecating plugins. |
Required | Automatically installed for all org members without the option to remove it | The plugin appears in their installed list without any action and cannot be disabled or uninstalled. |
Set preferences
In Organization settings > Plugins, navigate to your marketplace.
Select the installation preference for each plugin.
Changes take effect on each member's next session or plugin refresh.
What members experience
Members browse available plugins through the Browse plugins modal in Cowork. Auto-installed plugins appear in their installed list automatically. Available plugins show up in the catalog for self-service installation.
Members can't edit organization-managed plugins, which prevents conflicting changes to shared tooling.
Customize plugin access by group
Enterprise admins can override a plugin's organization-wide installation preference for specific groups. For example, you can auto-install a plugin for the Engineering group, make it available for Legal to install on their own, and hide it from everyone else.
Group-level plugin access is available on Enterprise plans and configurable by Admins and above.
How group overrides work
Each plugin in your marketplace has an organization-wide installation preference (Installed by default, Available for install, Required, or Not available). By default, every group inherits that organization-wide setting.
When you set a group-level override for a plugin, it replaces the org-wide setting for members of that group. The resolution order is: group setting, then org-wide setting, then marketplace default.
Set plugin access for a group
In Organization settings > Plugins, navigate to your marketplace.
Find the plugin you want to customize.
In the Custom access column, click to add a group override.
Select the group and choose one of the four installation preferences listed above.
Both manually created groups and SCIM-provisioned groups from your identity provider appear in the group picker and work the same way.
What happens when a member is in multiple groups
If a member belongs to two or more groups with different settings for the same plugin, the most permissive setting applies. The order from most to least permissive is: Required > Installed by default > Available for install > Not available.
For example, if Group A sets a plugin to "Not available" and Group B sets it to "Installed by default," a member in both groups gets the plugin installed by default.
Note: This is the opposite of how group spend limits resolve. Spend limits apply the most restrictive value by default, because they serve as a budget control. Plugin access applies the most permissive value, because groups here are meant to enable access for teams that need a tool—not to act as a security boundary. If you need to hard-block a plugin, set its org-wide preference to "Not available" and only grant access to the groups that should have it.
What happens when a group is deleted
If a group is removed—for example, if it's deleted from your identity provider—the override remains in the admin UI but is flagged as orphaned. It has no effect on members (since no one belongs to a deleted group) and doesn't count toward the custom access badge. You can clear orphaned overrides from the plugin's custom access settings.
Do group settings persist across marketplace re-syncs?
Yes. Group-level overrides persist when you re-sync a GitHub-connected marketplace. They're only removed if the plugin itself is deleted from the marketplace.
Update and remove plugins
Manual marketplaces
To update a plugin, upload a new ZIP file with the same plugin name. The new version overwrites the existing one automatically. Plugin names are the unique identifier — legal will always replace legal.
To remove a plugin, delete it from your marketplace in Organization settings > Plugins.
GitHub-synced marketplaces
Push your changes to the connected repository, then go to Organization settings > Plugins, find your marketplace, and click "Update" to trigger a sync. Each sync replaces all plugins with the current state of the repo. Note that if an owner has enabled "Sync automatically" for the GitHub-synced marketplace, this will happen automatically after pushing changes to the repo.
To remove a plugin, delete it from the repository and trigger a sync.
Limits
Limit | Value | Notes |
Max plugin ZIP size (upload) | 50 MB | Enforced both client-side and server-side |
Max plugins per marketplace (manual) | 100 | Per marketplace |
Max plugins per marketplace (GitHub sync) | 500 | Per marketplace |
Max plugin name length | 64 characters | Must use lowercase words separated by hyphens |
Sync timeout | 30 minutes | Per sync operation |
GitHub repo visibility | Private or internal only | Must be hosted on github.com. Public repos and GitHub Enterprise Server instances aren't supported. |
Naming rules
Plugin names must use lowercase words separated by hyphens (for example, deployment-tools, not Deployment Tools). The following marketplace names are reserved and can't be used:
claude-code-marketplaceclaude-code-pluginsclaude-plugins-officialanthropic-marketplaceanthropic-pluginsagent-skillslife-sciences
Names that impersonate official Anthropic marketplaces are also blocked.
Choose between manual upload and GitHub sync
Scenario | Recommended approach |
Plugins are maintained in version control with CI/CD | GitHub sync |
Multiple developers collaborate on plugins | GitHub sync |
You want automatic update propagation | GitHub sync |
You need more than 100 plugins in a marketplace | GitHub sync |
Quick prototyping or one-off tools | Manual upload |
Plugins built by non-engineering teams | Manual upload |
Environments without GitHub access | Manual upload |
Testing a plugin before adding it to a synced repo | Manual upload |
Troubleshooting
Upload rejected
Common causes: the file exceeds 50 MB, it isn't a valid ZIP file, or the marketplace has reached the 100-plugin limit. Check the file size and format, and remove unused plugins if you're at capacity.
Plugin not appearing for members
Check the plugin's installation preference in your marketplace settings. If it's set to Not available, members won't see it. Also confirm that Cowork and Skills are both enabled for your organization.
Updated plugin not reflecting for members
Changes take effect on each member's next session or plugin refresh. If the update still isn't showing, confirm the upload succeeded by checking the plugin version in your marketplace.
GitHub sync fails with a content error
One or more plugins in your repo is likely formatted incorrectly. Fix the formatting issue, push the update to GitHub, and trigger the sync again. For plugin structure requirements, see the plugin reference documentation.
Plugins disappeared after a failed sync
A failed GitHub sync can temporarily remove plugins from your marketplace. Fix the underlying issue, re-sync successfully, then verify that installation preferences are set correctly—they may have been reset.
Can't see a GitHub repo when connecting
Make sure the Cowork GitHub App is installed in that repository. Your personal GitHub token is checked first to confirm access, but the sync itself uses the GitHub App installation token.