When Claude Code downloads a plugin with git and that plugin has a directoryPin, the clone now skips submodules. A submodule is a separate git repository nested inside another one. This applies to plugins from these sources:
githuburlgit-subdir
The clone runs with --no-recurse-submodules and -c submodule.recurse=false, driven by a new noSubmodules option. The usage data recorded about each clone now also notes whether the plugin is a directory plugin, and the plugin loader is now given the git commit SHA recorded for it. A commit SHA is the unique ID of one saved version in a git repository.
A pinned plugin no longer pulls in extra nested repositories during installation. If a plugin of this kind relied on its submodules being present, those files will not be downloaded.
The finding does not say how a plugin comes to have a `directoryPin`.