Unclear What decides whether the GitHub HTTPS fallback is used for a given install is not known.
What
A plugin is an add-on for Claude Code, and a marketplace is a catalogue of plugins that Claude Code downloads with git. Downloads from GitHub can use SSH, which needs keys set up, or HTTPS, which does not. Claude Code now tries one of these and falls back to the other.
- GitHub plugin installs build both an SSH and an HTTPS address. If SSH to GitHub is not set up, the clone uses HTTPS and tells you so (
SSH not configured, cloning via HTTPS:). If the HTTPS clone fails, the folder is cleared and the clone is retried over SSH. If both fail, the error saysThe retry over SSH failed too. - The check for SSH now answers configured, not configured, or unknown.
- Plugin install takes a new
gitHubHttpsFallbackoption. It collects these fallback notices and adds them to the success or error output ofplugin install. - Marketplace clone and refresh choose a transport from your SSH setup, try it, and then try the other one. If both fail, one combined error holds both failures, and the log line now includes the failure detail.
- A bulk marketplace refresh now lists failed directory-based marketplaces separately as
builtInSkippedinstead of mixing them into the general failures. - The git fallback for the official marketplace is controlled by
tengu_plugin_official_mkt_git_fallback, which defaults to on. If that gate is off and the main download (GCS) fails, the refresh is skipped. The flag server returned on for this site's account and for the anonymous baseline, but no reading has been taken under this release yet. - Plugins taken from a subfolder of a git repository (
git-subdirsources) are now checked out withread-tree -u --resetinstead ofcheckout. The error text is nowgit read-tree after sparse-checkout failed, and the commit (sha) is checked as well as the ref.
Why
Installing a GitHub plugin no longer requires working SSH keys, and a setup that works only over SSH still has a fallback. When a clone fails both ways, the error shows what went wrong with each attempt instead of only the last one.
tengu_plugin_official_mkt_git_fallback On for this account, and not off by defaultThe flag server returned on for the one account this site reads, and nothing in this release compiles it off by default. The compiled default is shown below, and says which it is when we cannot read one: a fifth of gates compile in a string or a number rather than on or off, and most published releases have no gate table behind them at all. No client can see what the server returns for your account.
This account: on · anonymous baseline: on · compiled default in v2.1.288: on
These values were read against a different version of Claude Code, so treat them as the nearest reading available instead of one taken on this release.
Read once, for one account on one subscription tier, against v2.1.288. It isn't a statement about your account. What a flag value here can and cannot tell you
What decides whether the GitHub HTTPS fallback is used for a given install is not known.