What
When a plugin does not load, the advice you get depends on how it was installed: passed with --plugin-dir, picked up from a skills directory, or synced from claude.ai. Shadowed synced plugins get their own named warning explaining that the local copy of the same name takes precedence.
Details
- Plugin sources gained readable labels, including "plugins synced from your claude.ai account".
- The
pluginRootfield in a marketplace definition now has a much fuller schema description.
Evidence
on this machine has the same name and takes precedence
Strings lifted out of the shipped bundle, so the claim above can be checked against them.
Names in the bundle--plugin-dir
The entry above is what we published on the day. These lines were added later, as Anthropic's own pages caught up, and they sit beside the original rather than replacing it.
Added since
A small documentation edit on Create plugins touched a line naming --plugin-dir after this was published.
Trying the plugin with `--plugin-dir` tells you it can work. To find out how often Claude actually reaches for it and gets the right result, run it against a set of test prompts with [`claude plugin eval`](/docs/en/plugin-evals). Each prom…plugins see the edit
Confirmed since
Anthropic's documentation has since written up --plugin-dir, on Discover and install prebuilt plugins through marketplaces.
* Edits to a plugin you loaded with [`--plugin-dir`](/docs/en/plugins#test-your-plugins-locally) while you develop itdiscover-plugins see the edit
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's documentation agrees
Anthropic's documentation has since written up --plugin-dir, on Discover and install prebuilt plugins through marketplaces.