CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS
A Claude Code environment variable, read out of the shipped bundle. It has been in the build since v2.1.280, including the newest one read.
New CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS environment variable lets you register extra plugin directories without --plugin-dir flags
Not Anthropic's. This is the line from the earliest changelog entry here that named it, v2.1.280.
In the changelogs
2Releases whose published page names CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS.
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v2.1.280
CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS env var for sideloading plugin directories
New CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS environment variable lets you register extra plugin directories without --plugin-dir flags
found in this entry's text, named in this entry
-
v2.1.280
New CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS helper module: Son/OBn/nDe/Zst plus a dedicated refusal message
Claude Code adds internal handling for CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS, including validation of the paths it lists and a message explaining how to unset it
found in this entry's text, named in this entry
First cited
3The earliest release whose published evidence quoted CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS was v2.1.280, 22 Sep 2026. That is the oldest release this project wrote about it, so it is a floor on the name's age and not the release that introduced it. It is not a presence reading: which builds carried the name is the table below.
Presence across releases
1Build by build
4One row per release since the first build this name was read out of. Absent means the build was read and the name was not in it, never mined means no bundle for that release was ever archived, and a declared type or a default is only ever what that release's own bundle stated.
Read out of the published npm bundle release by release, and out of Anthropic's own documentation as this site captured it. Nothing on this page is a description anybody here wrote about what the environment variable does. All environment variables.