plugincraft

name	plugincraft
description	MANDATORY load before any Read/Edit/Write to plugin content — plugin.json, marketplace.json, files under commands/, agents/, skills/, hooks/, or .mcp.json — regardless of where the plugin lives (personal ~/.claude/plugins/, marketplace-installed, or project-local). Creates, audits, ships, and maintains Claude Code plugins; manages marketplace entries; validates publish readiness. TRIGGER when: editing/creating/reviewing plugin.json or marketplace.json; creating a new plugin; auditing or improving a plugin; regenerating a marketplace; preparing a plugin to publish; bulk-auditing every installed plugin; bootstrapping evals for a plugin. DO NOT skip because "it's only a manifest tweak" — load first, lightweight checks are cheap.
argument-hint	[plugin name, path, or 'marketplace']

Plugin Craft

Create, audit, ship, and maintain Claude Code plugins.

When to Use

• Before ANY Read/Edit/Write on a plugin file — plugin.json, marketplace.json, files under commands/, agents/, skills/, hooks/, .mcp.json — wherever the plugin lives (personal ~/.claude/plugins/, marketplace-installed, or project-local). Load first; the Lightweight Mode checks are cheap and run inline.
• Creating a brand new Claude Code plugin
• Auditing a plugin for quality issues or publish readiness
• Fixing manifest, marketplace, or cross-component coherence problems
• Regenerating a marketplace.json from constituent plugin.json files
• Bulk-auditing every installed plugin

Modes

Mode	Trigger	Workflow
Lightweight	Auto-loaded during plugin file editing	(inline below)
Create	/plugincraft or /plugincraft <name>, or "create a plugin"	(coming in PR 3 — falls back to inline guidance)
Improve	/plugincraft --improve [path], or "audit/improve a plugin"	workflows/improve-standard.md
Bulk Audit	/plugincraft --all, or "audit all my plugins"	workflows/improve-bulk.md
Bootstrap Evals	"add evals", "add plugin evals", "bootstrap evals", "bootstrap plugin evals", "write evals for"	workflows/bootstrap-evals.md
Marketplace Generate	/plugincraft marketplace, or "regenerate marketplace.json"	scripts/marketplace-generate.sh (interactive workflow doc coming later)
Publish	/plugincraft --publish [path], or "is this plugin ready to publish"	(coming in PR 4 — falls back to inline guidance)

Mode selection: If the request mentions "audit all", "bulk", "every plugin", or "check all plugins", use Bulk Audit. If it mentions auditing, reviewing, or improving a specific plugin (single name), use Improve. If the request asks to add, bootstrap, or write evals for a plugin (e.g. "add plugin evals", "bootstrap evals for this plugin"), use Bootstrap Evals. If it mentions regenerating the marketplace, syncing marketplace entries, or fixing marketplace drift, use Marketplace Generate. If it mentions publish-readiness, "ready to ship", or release prep, use Publish. If it specifies a concrete edit to make on a plugin file (e.g., "add a hook to my plugin"), use Lightweight mode — the edit is covered by the inline checks. Otherwise default to Create.

Testing Discipline

For skills contained inside a plugin, plugincraft delegates to skillcraft — every skill audit goes through skillcraft's improve-standard workflow and its Iron Law applies. For plugin-level (multi-component bundle) evaluation, see the Plugins entry in claude-code-evals' What Can Be Evaluated table. Plugincraft-the-skill itself does not yet ship its own evals; they will be bootstrapped via skillcraft once plugincraft's design stabilizes.

Lightweight Mode (Auto-trigger)

When loaded during editing of any file within a plugin directory, apply only these quick checks:

1. plugin.json valid JSON, has name — basic manifest sanity (jq .name .claude-plugin/plugin.json non-empty)
2. Name matches directory — name field matches the plugin directory name
3. Components at root, NOT inside .claude-plugin/ — flag any .claude-plugin/skills/, .claude-plugin/commands/, etc.
4. ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} used in path references — flag hardcoded paths in hooks.json and .mcp.json commands
5. README.md present at plugin root — warn (not fail) if missing
6. Marketplace entry exists — if a parent .claude-plugin/marketplace.json exists, flag if this plugin is missing from its plugins[]

Report issues inline as suggestions. Do NOT run the full checklist or restructure the plugin.

Improve Quick Reference

Mode	Scope	Workflow
Standard	Full audit of one plugin	workflows/improve-standard.md
Bulk	Audit every installed plugin	workflows/improve-bulk.md

Quick Pre-flight

${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/plugincraft/scripts/quick-validate.sh <plugin-directory>
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/plugincraft/scripts/quick-validate.sh --all

Delegation, Not Duplication

Plugincraft complements rather than duplicates upstream tools. See references/delegation-map.md for the full mapping. Summary:

Concern	Delegated to
Manifest and component schema depth	plugin-dev's plugin-validator agent
Per-skill audit inside a plugin	skillcraft's improve-standard workflow
Component knowledge during Create	plugin-dev's component skills (plugin-structure, hook-development, etc.) — PR 3
Agent generation during Create	plugin-dev's agent-creator agent — PR 3

Plugincraft owns the gaps: cross-component coherence (PX), marketplace coherence (MK), README quality (PR), publish readiness (PB), plugin-level anti-patterns, bulk audit, and marketplace generation.

Anti-Pattern Detection

Consult references/anti-patterns.md for 14 common plugin-level problems across 4 categories (Structural, Distribution, Naming, Coherence). When an anti-pattern is detected, cite it by ID + name and show the before/after fix.

For skill-level anti-patterns inside a plugin, delegate to skillcraft/references/anti-patterns.md via skillcraft's audit.

Dependencies

• jq — JSON processing (brew install jq). Required by scripts/quick-validate.sh and detection recipes in references/component-coherence.md.
• git — used by workflows/improve-standard.md to surface recently-touched plugins as audit candidates.
• skillcraft (sibling skill in this plugin) — hard dependency. Plugincraft's improve-standard workflow loads skillcraft for per-skill audits inside the plugin under review.
• plugin-dev (Anthropic's official plugin) — soft dependency. Plugincraft's improve-standard invokes plugin-dev's plugin-validator agent for manifest and component schema depth. When not installed, plugincraft warns once per workflow invocation and falls back to its own (shallower) PM/PC checks. Install with: /plugin install plugin-dev@claude-plugins-official.

Reference Files

File	Purpose
references/quality-checklist.md	33-item validation checklist across 8 categories (PM/PS/PC/PX/PR/MK/PB/PE)
references/anti-patterns.md	14 plugin-level anti-patterns across 4 categories
references/component-coherence.md	Detection recipes and fix shapes for the PX category
references/delegation-map.md	What plugincraft delegates to upstream tools and what it owns directly
references/marketplace-spec.md	marketplace.json schema and what marketplace-generate.sh preserves vs rewrites

Scripts

Script	Purpose
scripts/quick-validate.sh	Fast structural validation (PM, PS, PR1, MK1). Pre-flight before the full audit.
scripts/marketplace-generate.sh	Regenerate .claude-plugin/marketplace.json from constituent plugin.json files. Supports --check (dry-run, exit 1 on drift) and default-apply.

Workflows

File	Purpose
workflows/improve-standard.md	7-step audit of one plugin: pre-flight → plugin-validator → per-skill skillcraft → PX/PR/MK/PB/PE → anti-patterns → report → fix loop
workflows/improve-bulk.md	Iterate every installed plugin, produce a summary table, optionally enter fix loops for selected plugins
workflows/bootstrap-evals.md	10-step guided bootstrap of plugin-level eval coverage: select → catalog components → delegate per-skill bootstrap to skillcraft → bundle scenarios → interview → pipeline config → scenarios → lint → run → iterate