How to Install & Use Claude Code Plugins (2026)

Learning how to install Claude Code plugins takes one command, and using them takes none — once a plugin is installed, its capabilities are simply there. A plugin bundles skills, subagents, hooks, and MCP servers into a single package you add from a marketplace; installing it makes all of that available at once. This tutorial covers the whole loop: how plugins work, how to install them from the official and other marketplaces, how to use what they add, how to manage them, and how to fix the occasional snag.

If you want the bigger picture first — what plugins are and what they can bundle — see our complete guide to Claude Code plugins. Otherwise, let's install one.

Key Takeaways

If you remember nothing else:

• Install with /plugin install <name>@<marketplace> — the official marketplace is auto-registered, so @claude-plugins-official works immediately
• For any other marketplace, add it first: /plugin marketplace add <owner>/<repo> (a marketplace is just a git repo)
• After installing, a plugin's skills, commands, MCP tools, and hooks are live — skills run automatically or as /plugin-name:skill-name
• /plugin opens an interactive manager to browse, enable, disable, and update
• /reload-plugins applies changes without restarting
• Most problems are a stale marketplace — fix with /plugin marketplace update <name>

Table of Contents

1. How Plugins Work: A 30-Second Primer
2. How to Install Claude Code Plugins
3. How to Use Claude Code Plugins
4. Managing Plugins
5. Troubleshooting
6. Conclusion

How Plugins Work: A 30-Second Primer

Two ideas make installing a plugin make sense:

• A marketplace is a git repository with a catalog of plugins. There is no central gatekeeper — Anthropic hosts official ones, the community hosts public ones, and teams host private ones. To install a plugin you name both the plugin and its marketplace: plugin-name@marketplace-name.
• Plugin skills are namespaced. A skill from a plugin called my-tools is invoked as /my-tools:review, never a bare /review, so plugins from many authors never collide.

The one shortcut worth knowing: Anthropic's official marketplace, claude-plugins-official, is registered automatically the first time you launch Claude Code, so you can install from it with no setup at all.

How to Install Claude Code Plugins

There are two paths, depending on where the plugin lives.

From the official marketplace (one command)

Because claude-plugins-official is already registered, installing an official plugin is a single line:

/plugin install code-review@claude-plugins-official

That works immediately for any first-party or vetted-partner plugin. Browse the full first-party set in our guide to the official Claude Code plugins.

From any other marketplace (add, then install)

For a community or third-party plugin, add its marketplace first — remember, that is just a git repo — then install with the @<marketplace> suffix:

/plugin marketplace add obra/superpowers-marketplace
/plugin install superpowers@superpowers-marketplace

Anthropic's public community marketplace works the same way:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community
/plugin install <plugin-name>@claude-community

From the interactive manager

Prefer to browse? Run /plugin on its own to open the manager, where you can search available plugins, read what each one does, and install with a keystroke — no need to remember exact names. To understand the marketplace system itself — official, community, and independent directories — see our Claude Code plugins marketplace guide. And for a shortlist of what is actually worth installing, see our tested best Claude Code plugins roundup.

How to Use Claude Code Plugins

Here is the good news: there is no separate "use" step. Once a plugin is installed and enabled, everything it bundles is live. What that means in practice depends on what the plugin ships:

• Skills — run automatically when your request matches their description, or directly by typing their namespaced command, /plugin-name:skill-name. Type / to see every command available in your session.
• MCP servers — connect on load, so Claude can call the external tools and data they expose (a GitHub API, a database, a design tool) without any extra step.
• Hooks — fire on the events they target, such as running on every commit or after a tool call.
• Slash commands and output styles — become available to invoke or select immediately.

For example, install the github plugin and Claude can suddenly read your issues and open pull requests; install a language-server plugin and it gains real-time type errors for your code; install frontend-design and its guidance shapes any UI it writes. You did not change how you work — the plugin simply widened what Claude can do.

So "using" a plugin is mostly a matter of doing your normal work and letting its capabilities kick in — ask Claude to do something a plugin covers, and the plugin handles it. To confirm a plugin is active, open /plugin and check it is enabled, or invoke one of its commands directly. If you install a plugin mid-session, run /reload-plugins so its components register right away.

Managing Plugins

Day-to-day management lives in a few commands:

Disabling a plugin keeps it installed but turns it off; uninstalling removes it. Both are one action in the /plugin manager, and /reload-plugins makes the change take effect right away.

Troubleshooting

Almost every plugin issue is one of these:

• "Plugin not found" on install. Your marketplace catalog is stale. Run /plugin marketplace update <name> and retry, and double-check the name@marketplace spelling.
• marketplace add fails. Confirm the owner/repo is correct and public (or that you have access to a private repo). A marketplace must contain a valid catalog file.
• The plugin seems installed but does nothing. Make sure it is enabled in the /plugin manager, then run /reload-plugins. A disabled plugin stays installed but inactive.
• A slash command has an unexpected prefix. That is namespacing — plugin skills are always /plugin-name:skill-name, never a bare name.
• A partner/MCP plugin can't reach its service. It likely needs credentials — an API key or login for the external tool it connects to.

Conclusion

Installing a Claude Code plugin is a one-liner: /plugin install <name>@claude-plugins-official for official plugins, or /plugin marketplace add <owner>/<repo> then /plugin install for anything else. Using one takes no extra effort — its skills, MCP tools, and hooks are live the moment it is enabled. And when something misbehaves, the fix is almost always /plugin marketplace update or /reload-plugins.

From here, pick your stack with the tested best Claude Code plugins, browse the first-party set in the official Claude Code plugins list, and — since plugins bundle skills — see how to add skills to Claude Code for the skill side of the story.

Related Resources

• Claude Code Plugins: The Complete Guide
• Best Claude Code Plugins (2026): Tested & Ranked
• Official Claude Code Plugins: The Complete List
• How to Add Skills to Claude Code
• Claude Code Skills vs. Plugins vs. Agents vs. MCP