Anthropic opens a submission portal for Claude plugins

Anthropic now calls plugins the main way for third-party developers to extend Claude, and its new directory submission portal gives them a single route from submission to a listing in the Claude directory. A plugin can contain MCP connectors, Agent Skills, or both. An MCP connector lets Claude call tools in an outside service, and a skill is a packaged set of instructions and resources Claude can load for a task. There are two ways to submit. A developer can point the portal at a single remote MCP server, or submit a GitHub repository that bundles MCP servers and skills. In Claude Code, a bundle can also carry LSPs, commands, hooks and agents. The portal is open to developers on paid Claude plans.

The portal handles review as well as intake. Each submission is checked and safety-scanned as soon as it arrives. The developer can see where it stands in review, what the safety scan found and which changes are recommended. After approval, the developer decides when the plugin goes live. Once it is live, the portal reports installs by product surface and version, how often the listing is viewed, and which searches lead people to it.

The announcement also sets out where Anthropic is heading. Over the coming weeks, a single discovery experience will roll out across Claude and Claude Code. Skills and connectors remain building blocks and stay listed in the directory, and developers will later be able to turn a connector listing into a plugin. Developers with an existing skill, connector or plugin in the directory do not need to change anything. Claude supports the latest MCP spec, which Anthropic says is commonly called MCP 2.0 and includes a stateless core. It also supports two extensions: MCP Apps, for interactive UI inside a chat, and Enterprise Managed Auth, for zero-touch OAuth for enterprise users. When ClaudeDevs announced the portal, the account said MCP usage across Claude products is up 110x this year. That is a company figure given without a baseline.