claude-plugins-official: Anthropic's Plugin Directory

TL;DR: anthropics/claude-plugins-official is Anthropic’s own directory of Claude Code plugins, with 39,173 stars, 4,332 forks and an Apache-2.0 license. It is the reference list to check before installing a third-party plugin, which is what makes it worth reading.

What it is

The repository describes itself in one sentence: an official, Anthropic-managed directory of high quality Claude Code plugins. The owner is an Organization account rather than an individual user, and that detail is the part that matters here. Claude Code plugins are code that runs inside an agent session, so where the list comes from is the security question before anything else.

The homepage is the official plugins documentation at code.claude.com rather than a separate marketing site, which suggests the repository tracks the documentation instead of standing on its own.

The plugin ecosystem in one place

Claude Code plugins are packaged bundles of commands, agents, hooks and MCP server definitions that you install into your client. The repository’s topic list is claude-code, mcp and skills, which lines up with those three layers: the client itself, the Model Context Protocol servers a plugin can register, and the skills a plugin can contribute.

The repository is written in Python, which is a little surprising for something that reads like a curated index. It points to tooling on the publication side rather than a runtime component, though the metadata does not describe the internals.

Fresh, and heavily worked

Metric	Value
Stars	39,173
Forks	4,332
Open issues	1,149
Primary language	Python
Repository size	about 17 MB
Created	2025-11-20
Last push	2026-10-16
License	Apache-2.0

$ curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/anthropics/claude-plugins-official \
  | jq '{stars: .stargazers_count, language, license: .license.spdx_id, topics, created_at}'
{
  "stars": 39173,
  "language": "Python",
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "topics": ["claude-code","mcp","skills"],
  "created_at": "2025-11-20T18:36:20Z"
}

The last push landed today, 2026-10-16, so this is a live reference rather than an archive. The 1,149 open issues are the interesting counterpart. For a curated directory the tracker is where plugin requests, removals and takedown requests end up, and a busy one reads as a sign that curation is actually happening.

How to use it

The practical move is to treat it as a vetting step. Before installing a Claude Code plugin from an author you do not recognise, check whether it appears here.

git clone https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official.git
gh api repos/anthropics/claude-plugins-official/contents --jq '.[].name'

Being listed is a signal, not a guarantee. It tells you Anthropic published it in an official directory, not that anyone read every line.

When to use it

Reach for it whenever you are deciding what to install into a Claude Code session. The alternative is discovering plugins through an agent’s own suggestions, which is not a review process.

It is also worth reading as a structural reference if you are writing a plugin yourself. A vendor-maintained catalogue shows the shape the ecosystem has settled on, which is more useful than guessing at a layout.

When not to use it

Do not read “official” as “safe” for anything touching credentials or network access. The Apache-2.0 license covers the repository’s own contents and says nothing about the behaviour of any individual plugin listed inside it.

If you need something older or more stable than what the directory points at today, this is the wrong place to look. It tracks current state by design.

Source and Accuracy Notes

• Project page: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins
• Source repository: anthropics/claude-plugins-official (verified via GitHub API html_url)
• License: Apache-2.0 (verified via GitHub API license.spdx_id)
• Stars at time of writing: 39173
• “Official” and “Anthropic-managed” are the repository’s own claims, backed by an Organization owner account in the GitHub API response