anthropics/claude-plugins-community: a nightly-synced mirror you cannot submit to

One file, .claude-plugin/marketplace.json, does all the work

Everything a user needs from this repository is in a single file, and the README is explicit about it: "The `.claude-plugin/marketplace.json` file here is the list of community plugins available to install." There is no build step, no package manager manifest, no CLI of its own. Besides `.claude-plugin/` and `.github/`, the top level of the repository carries six directories, `eli5/`, `html-plan/`, `next-steps/`, `quickdesign/`, `testdino/` and `tres-finance-plugin/`, and they are not a library you import.

Names like eli5 and testdino read like product names but are directory names, not packages. A visitor who wants to read the plugin for a specific name lands in that plugin's directory; a visitor who wants to install anything goes through the CLI commands instead. The repository's primary language is listed as Python.

The real mechanism is a nightly sync. The catalogue "is synced nightly from Anthropic's internal review pipeline", which means the commit history records the arrival of new entries, not author intent. Every entry in the file has been submitted through claude.ai, passed automated security scanning, and been approved for distribution.

Pull requests are closed on arrival, so the review pipeline is the only door

The submission path is a form, not a git workflow. The README says to submit via clau.de/plugin-directory-submission, then states plainly that "Pull requests opened directly against this repo are closed automatically". A contributor who assumes the usual contributor flow applies has misread the arrangement, because nothing in the flow leads to a merge.

This has a concrete consequence for anyone planning to run an internal fork. A fork works, since GitHub accepts commits on your own copy, but that copy drifts from upstream as the nightly sync continues.

For Claude Cowork users the repository is not even the install surface. Plugins for Cowork come from claude.com/plugins. Only Claude Code installs from this catalogue, which narrows the audience considerably for a project whose description reads like a general marketplace.

Adding the marketplace and installing one plugin

Two commands cover the whole Claude Code flow. The first registers this repository as a named marketplace source; the second installs a single plugin from the `claude-community` marketplace that the first command names. Both come verbatim from the README:

claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community

After that succeeds, replace the placeholder with a plugin name you have seen in the catalogue file:

claude plugin install <plugin-name>@claude-community

The angle-bracket placeholder is literal in the README, and it is the only part you supply yourself. Read the name out of `.claude-plugin/marketplace.json` first. A typo here fails at install time rather than at review time, and nothing in the repository offers a command to list the catalogue, list what is installed, or upgrade a plugin. The README documents no uninstall, no version pinning syntax, and no way to pin a marketplace commit. Whatever the CLI does beyond these two lines is outside what this repository tells you.

The catalogue is replaced every night, so nothing pins a version

Maintenance here has one source and no second signal: the last push was on 2026-11-02. It tells you the pipeline was still writing when the snapshot was taken, and nothing about whether an entry you rely on survived review this week.

Syncing nightly cuts both ways. Entries appear without announcement, and entries can disappear, because the file is regenerated from whatever the internal pipeline approves. Nothing in the repository documents whether a plugin can be delisted after approval, or what a removal looks like from the outside. If your automation depends on a specific plugin being present, polling this file at an interval is the only mechanism offered, and a diff check on the file is the only dependency pin available.

The six top-level plugin directories also hint at something the catalogue never explains. If directories are materialised for reviewed plugins, a reader can inspect what passed screening without touching the CLI, which is the repository's best use for a security-conscious team.

Automated scanning is the only stated quality control

The trust story in this project is one sentence long: submitted via claude.ai, passed automated security scanning, approved for distribution. Read closely, that chain has no human review step named, no published list of scan rules, and no report a user can read for the plugin named in their own install command.

That matters more here than in an ordinary repository because the install target is a coding agent with filesystem and shell access. A marketplace whose gate is a scanner you cannot inspect is a real trust surface, and this repository offers no way to narrow it beyond picking plugins yourself. The README does not document how to run the scanner locally, whether scanned plugins are re-scanned after a version change, or what happens when a scanner rule fires.

The alternative approach is the sibling repository the README links, anthropics/claude-plugins-official. That one is maintained by Anthropic itself, so the approval question changes shape: the README describes it as Anthropic-maintained. anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins sits on the same side of the line for role-specific plugins. The difference in approach is authorship, not format, and for a team deciding whether agent code is safe to run that is the difference that counts.

Where this mirror loses to writing your own marketplace.json

The natural alternative is a hand-maintained marketplace file in your own repository, added with the same CLI syntax. You lose the nightly arrivals and the scanning guarantee, and you gain something the mirror cannot offer: entries that only change when a human merges them, with the commit message recording why.

The mirror wins on discovery. Six plugin directories sit at the top level, and names like eli5 and testdino are names you would not guess at an internal registry. If you are looking for something rather than publishing something, this repository is the faster path.

Two costs are easy to underestimate. First, the README's install command addresses this marketplace as `claude-community`, and it does not explain how a second, hand-written marketplace is named alongside it. Second, with no version syntax documented, a private marketplace that also syncs nightly inherits the same delisting problem if it also syncs on a schedule. If you fork, treat `.claude-plugin/marketplace.json` as the contract and write a test that fails when an entry disappears.

Who should read this catalogue, and who should install from it

Adopt it when you are evaluating what has cleared Anthropic's automated screening for Claude Code, or when you want a browsable copy of the catalogue to hand to a team that will make its own selection call. Read the plugin directories, quote the exact command lines, and pin your own copy of the catalogue file.

Do not adopt it as a place to submit. The submission form is clau.de/plugin-directory-submission and pull requests are closed automatically, so no amount of branch discipline changes the outcome. Do not adopt it for Claude Cowork either, because Cowork plugins come from claude.com/plugins and this file is not that surface.

Verify one thing before you write any of it into a deployment script: open `.claude-plugin/marketplace.json` and confirm the plugin names your automation assumes are actually there. The file is replaced nightly, so treat the catalogue as a moving target rather than a dependency you can pin.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt it as a reference copy of the catalogue when you want to see what has cleared Anthropic's automated screening for Claude Code, or as a smoke test that the nightly sync is still landing. Do not adopt it as a place to publish a plugin, to pin a version, or to automate upgrades, because none of those workflows exist in the repository and the pull request path is closed to you by design. Before any of it reaches a deployment script, open .claude-plugin/marketplace.json and confirm the plugin names your automation assumes are present, because the file is rewritten every night without a changelog to tell you what was removed.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. anthropics/claude-plugins-community on GitHub
2. Issues
3. License: Apache-2.0
4. README