Claude Code Plugins: Packaging Skills, Hooks, and Integrations into Installable Extensions
Out of the box, Claude Code only sees your conversation, project files, and built-in tools. Plugins break that wall — installable packages that connect Claude Code to GitHub, Jira, AWS, databases, and internal APIs, and that bundle skills, hooks, slash commands, sub-agents, and MCP configs so they can be shared, versioned, and reused. This guide covers what plugins are, how they're structured, the plugin marketplace, how to install one with /plugins, and their advantages and limitations.