Install a Skill or Plugin in Claude Code

A skill is a superpower for your assistant: a short set of instructions that teaches it one job well. In Claude Code, a skill is a folder with a file called SKILL.md inside. Claude Code reads only the skill's name and description at the start. It loads the full instructions when the skill fits your request, or when you type / and the skill name.

A plugin is a package that can hold several skills, plus other add-ons. Plugins come from a marketplace, which is a list of plugins that someone publishes. Anthropic's official marketplace is called claude-plugins-official.

There are two ways to add a superpower. Use a plugin when the add-on gives you an install command. Use a skill folder when you only have the folder.

Option A: install a plugin

Open the plugin details

Start Claude Code in your project with claude. Then type the install command with the plugin name and the marketplace name. Anthropic's example installs commit-commands, which adds commands to save and share your code changes:

/plugin install commit-commands@claude-plugins-official

This does not install the plugin at once. It opens a panel with the plugin details.

Read what the plugin adds

The panel lists what the plugin will install: commands, agents, skills, hooks and connectors. A plugin can run programs on your computer, so read the panel before you continue. Install only plugins from people you trust.

Choose where it applies

Pick one of the install options. Install for you (user scope) makes the plugin work in every project on this computer. The other options limit it to the current project.

To browse instead of typing a name, type /plugin alone. The Discover tab lists the plugins from your marketplaces.

If an install command ends with a marketplace name other than claude-plugins-official, add that marketplace first. Anthropic's example adds a marketplace from a GitHub repository:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-code

Option B: add a skill folder by hand

Put the folder in your skills folder

Claude Code looks for skills in these places:

~ means your home folder. On Windows, Anthropic says ~/.claude means %USERPROFILE%\.claude, so personal skills go in %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills. You can paste that path into the address bar of File Explorer to open the folder.

First get the skill folder from its official page. Then copy the whole folder, with its SKILL.md file, into one of these paths. Anthropic's example makes a new personal skill folder like this (Mac and Linux):

$ mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/summarize-changes

Check the SKILL.md file

Open SKILL.md in a text editor. The top part, between two --- lines, holds a description. The description tells Claude Code when to use the skill. Read the rest of the file too: it is the instructions Claude Code will follow.

Use the skill

Start Claude Code. Ask for something that matches the description, or type / and the skill name, for example /summarize-changes.

Find superpowers to install

Our Skills list shows skills and plugins that we checked, with the install line from each official page. To see how skills compare with agents, hooks and connectors, read Skills, agents and connectors explained.