One plugin.json turns a shelf of skills into something you can switch off as a group
When I sorted my skills by what work they belong to, the set I open almost daily turned out to be 5 percent of the total. Here is how I dropped a .claude-plugin/plugin.json into each group so I could switch a whole shelf off, plus the two loading rules I tripped over on the way.
I counted 42 skills on my shelf, and four of them were just a note saying they had moved
Claude Code v2.1.261 added /skill-doctor. Before running it I counted my own skill shelf from the files, found four tombstones, and learned that the obvious awk one-liner for spotting duplicate plugin names quietly reports skills that are not duplicates at all.
Switching to headersHelper in Claude Code broke auth for project-scoped catalogs only
Moving a private plugin catalog to headersHelper worked at user scope and failed under the project directory. The cause was credential non-inheritance. Here are two working helpers, measured execution costs, and what unattended runs need.
Same Content, Different SHA-256: Making Pinned Plugin Archives Reproducible
Plugins can now be installed from an HTTPS zip with an optional SHA-256 pin. Building the same tree twice produced archives that differed in 50 bytes out of 22,669 and broke the pin every time. Here is the byte-level measurement and a packaging recipe that produced an identical hash 20 times out of 20.
Finding and Installing Claude Code Plugins from a Marketplace — Read What's Inside Before You Trust It
A practical walkthrough for discovering and installing Claude Code plugins from a marketplace. Beyond the /plugin commands, it covers how to read the bundled contents before you install, and how to choose between User and Project scope.
Claude Code Channels: How to Control Your Coding Agent from Telegram and Discord
Claude Code Channels let you send messages from Telegram or Discord directly into a running session. Learn how to set up, configure, and use this powerful new feature for remote development.
Implementation Patterns for Custom Claude Code Skills — SKILL.md Design, Testing, and Distribution
A hands-on tutorial for building three production custom Claude Code skills from scratch. Covers SKILL.md structure, agent types, context injection, testing, and team distribution.