The ranking
25 rowsRanked on the score, not on stars and not on anyone’s opinion. To appear at all a plugin must load cleanly, score at least 78, sit in a repository with at least 1,000 stars, and have been pushed to within 45 days. One row per repository, the best one it publishes.
The 433 plugins that clear the bar come from only 74 repositories, and the three largest contribute 195 of them between them. Every row below opens on the four components and the arithmetic that produced its score.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
79/100
- 142,266 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 79 × 0.20 = 15.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 81.25+ 3 for an official publisher, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
94/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
- no license file
79/100
- 144,875 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 94 × 0.25 = 23.5+ 79 × 0.20 = 15.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.75+ 3 for an official publisher, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
83/100
- 285,874 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 83 × 0.20 = 16.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 82.05, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
82/100
- 257,226 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 82 × 0.20 = 16.4+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 81.85, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
70/100
- 36,185 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 70 × 0.20 = 14.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.45+ 3 for an official publisher, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
70/100
- 34,807 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 70 × 0.20 = 14.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.45+ 3 for an official publisher, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
68/100
- 23,995 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 68 × 0.20 = 13.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.05+ 3 for an official publisher, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
78/100
- 136,767 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 78 × 0.20 = 15.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 81.05, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
78/100
- 127,200 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 78 × 0.20 = 15.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 81.05, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
76/100
- 95,820 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 76 × 0.20 = 15.2+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.65, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
76/100
- 93,775 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 76 × 0.20 = 15.2+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.65, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
76/100
- 93,756 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 76 × 0.20 = 15.2+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.65, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
92/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
82/100
- 260,623 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 92 × 0.25 = 23.0+ 82 × 0.20 = 16.4+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.85, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
94/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
- no license file
80/100
- 170,171 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 94 × 0.25 = 23.5+ 80 × 0.20 = 16.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.95, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
75/100
- 82,346 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 75 × 0.20 = 15.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.45, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
75/100
- 72,251 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 75 × 0.20 = 15.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.45, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
74/100
- 71,788 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 74 × 0.20 = 14.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.25, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
74/100
- 67,661 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 74 × 0.20 = 14.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.25, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
74/100
- 65,205 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 74 × 0.20 = 14.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.25, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
74/100
- 61,943 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 74 × 0.20 = 14.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.25, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
74/100
- 61,917 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 74 × 0.20 = 14.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 80.25, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
72/100
- 49,257 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 72 × 0.20 = 14.4+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.85, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
72/100
- 48,242 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 72 × 0.20 = 14.4+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.85, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
72/100
- 47,403 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 72 × 0.20 = 14.4+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.85, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
100/100
- Loads cleanly: valid frontmatter, required fields present, no dangling references.
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
72/100
- 46,341 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
100 × 0.40 = 40.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 72 × 0.20 = 14.4+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 79.85, which rounds to
Loads. Every structural check Claude Code needs to register this passed.
What is a Claude Code plugin?
This is a floor, not a coronation. A high score means a plugin has a manifest that parses, ships the components it advertises, and is still maintained, not that it is good at the job its description claims. Nothing here has been installed or executed. Read how the score is built before treating a number as a recommendation.
A Claude Code plugin is a bundle that a marketplace repository distributes, and Anthropic’s marketplace guide defines its contents exactly: you “build one or more plugins with skills, agents, hooks, MCP servers, or LSP servers”. Commands are conspicuously not on that list any more. The skills reference states that “custom commands have been merged into skills”, and that a file at .claude/commands/deploy.md and a skill at .claude/skills/deploy/SKILL.md “both create /deploy and work the same way”. A plugin listing that still advertises commands as a separate category is describing an older Claude Code.
The distribution side is one file. A repository becomes a plugin source by publishing .claude-plugin/marketplace.json in its root, and a user adds it with /plugin marketplace add owner/repo. That is why this index can be built at all: the manifest is a machine-readable declaration of what a repository claims to ship, sitting at a fixed path, in every repository that ships anything. The 10,773 repositories publishing one are listed on the marketplace page.
Why do only 59 of 34,971 published plugins fail to load?
0.2% of them0.2% of the Claude Code plugins this index can find on GitHub fail a structural check, against 20.7% of subagents, which makes a published subagent about 122 times likelier to be unloadable than a published plugin. The gap is explained by the file format rather than by care. A subagent is hand-written YAML in front of prose, and YAML fails quietly in a dozen ways. A plugin manifest is JSON, and JSON either parses or it does not, so the mistakes that sink a subagent never reach a published plugin: 59 of the 59 failures here are a manifest that is not valid JSON, and the remaining 0 sit in a repository that has been archived.
The consequence is that a plugin score is doing different work from a subagent score. On the subagent directory the loading check is the headline finding, because it removes 25,386 files from consideration before anything else is weighed. Here it removes 59, so what separates the rows above is maintenance, adoption and how much the bundle actually carries, and the bar of 1,000 stars and 45 days is doing more of the filtering than the structural check is.
Why only one plugin per repository?
Because every artifact in a monorepo inherits that repository's maintenance, adoption and trust scores, so they land on the same number and a straight top-25 stops being a ranking. The pull is severe here: the 433 plugins that clear the bar come from only 74 repositories, and the three largest contribute 195 of them between them. Ranked on score alone this page would be one repository's directory listing.
Collapsing to the best row per repository trades a little precision for a list that actually spans the ecosystem. It also makes this a starting point rather than a verdict. The full scored directory is where to go when you already know which job you are hiring for, and the subagent equivalent uses the same bar, so the two lists can be read against each other.
Sources
The plugin contents list, the manifest path, the install command and the strict rules are quoted from Anthropic’s Create and distribute a plugin marketplace guide. The merge of custom commands into skills is quoted from Extend Claude with skills. Both were read against the live documentation on 9 August 2026. Every count, score and star figure on this page is read out of this index’s own nightly rebuild rather than quoted from a repository’s README.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
92/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
33/100
- 119 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 92 × 0.25 = 23.0+ 33 × 0.20 = 6.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 46.05, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
11/100
- 5 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 11 × 0.20 = 2.2+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 43.65, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
94/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
- no license file
15/100
- 11 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 94 × 0.25 = 23.5+ 15 × 0.20 = 3.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 42.95, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install. It also carries one deduction: No license.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
94/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
- no license file
5/100
- 1 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 94 × 0.25 = 23.5+ 5 × 0.20 = 1.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 40.95, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install. It also carries one deduction: No license.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
94/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
- no license file
4/100
- 1 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 94 × 0.25 = 23.5+ 4 × 0.20 = 0.8+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 40.75, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install. It also carries one deduction: No license.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
86/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
- no license file
15/100
- 12 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 86 × 0.25 = 21.5+ 15 × 0.20 = 3.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 40.95, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install. It also carries one deduction: No license.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
- repo is less than two weeks old
0/100
- No install or star signal yet.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 0 × 0.20 = 0.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 41.45, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
0/100
- No install or star signal yet.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 0 × 0.20 = 0.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 41.45, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
100/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
0/100
- No install or star signal yet.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 100 × 0.25 = 25.0+ 0 × 0.20 = 0.0+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 41.45, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
92/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
8/100
- 3 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 92 × 0.25 = 23.0+ 8 × 0.20 = 1.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 41.05, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
92/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
8/100
- 3 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 92 × 0.25 = 23.0+ 8 × 0.20 = 1.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 41.05, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.
40/100
- plugin.json is not valid JSON
92/100
- no commits in the last 12 weeks
8/100
- 3 stars on the source repo.
3/100
- No usage example or code block.
40 × 0.40 = 16.0+ 92 × 0.25 = 23.0+ 8 × 0.20 = 1.6+ 3 × 0.15 = 0.45= 41.05, which rounds to
Does not load. The JSON manifest is invalid, so the plugin will not install.