Claude Cowork plugins in short
Claude Cowork plugins are packages that add skills, connectors, agents and hooks to Cowork in one step. You add them from Customize > Plugins in the Claude desktop app, either from a marketplace, from a Git repository you add as a marketplace, or from an uploaded file. A plugin you add is saved to your account, so it also shows up in chat and in Claude Code. Everything below comes from Anthropic’s Cowork plugin guide and related docs. We did not test the steps ourselves.
What a plugin can contain in Cowork
According to the guide, a plugin can mix four kinds of component:
| Component | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Skills | Reusable instructions that teach Claude a workflow |
| Connectors | MCP servers that give Claude access to an external service |
| Agents | Specialized subagents Claude can delegate to |
| Hooks | Scripts that run at defined points in a session |
Anthropic’s platform support table shows how one plugin folder behaves in each app. Skills and commands load in chat, Cowork and Claude Code; in Cowork you run a command by typing /plugin-name:command. Agents and hooks are ignored in chat but load in Cowork. A local MCP server loads in Cowork only when the session runs on your computer. LSP servers, output styles and themes are ignored there, and a plugin with a top-level bin/ directory can’t be installed in Cowork at all.
How to install a plugin in Cowork
The steps below follow the Cowork guide and the plugin overview.
- Open Customize in the sidebar, then Plugins.
- Select Discover. The default marketplace is Anthropic’s catalog.
- Select a plugin, read what it contains, and click Add or Install.
- Open the plugin’s Connectors tab. Installing a plugin does not add a connector or sign you in; you connect each one yourself.
- Start a Cowork task. Per the overview, a plugin’s skills, commands, agents and connectors load into your tasks the next time you start one.
To use a plugin outside Anthropic’s catalog, choose Add > Add marketplace and enter a repository URL or owner/repo. GitHub and GitHub Enterprise work, and so do public GitLab and Bitbucket repositories. To install from a file, choose Add > Upload plugin with a .zip or .plugin file that holds one .claude-plugin/plugin.json. Plugin package limits are 200 MB and 5,000 files, and you can add up to 25 marketplaces.
Plugins are available on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, per the plugins support article. On Team and Enterprise plans an Owner decides which sources members see and can mark plugins as installed by default or required.
Claude Cowork skills: what is documented
Skills are managed separately under Customize > Skills, and the skills support article describes the upload path: package the skill folder as a ZIP, open Customize > Skills, click +, choose Create skill, then Upload a skill. It also says skill sharing works in both chat and Cowork, and that you can install a skill from your organization’s directory in Cowork from the Skills tab.
One detail matters if you already use Claude Code. The Claude Code skills docs say Cowork sessions do not read ~/.claude/skills/ on your machine. They load the skills enabled for your claude.ai account, synced at session start. A skill you dropped into a local folder for Claude Code will not appear in Cowork.
What we could not confirm from official pages: a command-line way to install a standalone skill folder into Cowork, and any list of “best” skills for it. The path Anthropic documents is the upload above, or a plugin that bundles the skill.
Plugins that Anthropic publishes for Cowork
anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins is an Apache-2.0 repository built for Cowork that also works with Claude Code. It holds 11 plugins: productivity, sales, customer-support, product-management, marketing, legal, finance, data, enterprise-search, bio-research and cowork-plugin-management. In Claude Code you add it with claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins, then install one, for example claude plugin install sales@knowledge-work-plugins. The support article says the built-in Knowledge Work marketplace is added by default.
The repository does not describe how contributions are reviewed, so read a plugin before you enable it, as you would any other.
Best Claude Cowork plugins: what we reviewed
We do not rank the best Claude Cowork plugins by app. Our directory reviews plugins by what they contain, and we have not tested any of them in Cowork. Two reviewed repositories mention it:
- phuryn/pm-skills: 69 product-management skills in nine plugins. Instruction text only, with a clean security status. Its README includes a Windows workaround that registers a scheduled task to start the Cowork VM service; you run that yourself, and it is worth reading before you do.
- deanpeters/product-manager-skills: 77 PM skills that interview you and apply a named framework. The license (CC BY-NC-SA) limits commercial reuse, and we gave it a “caveats” verdict.
Anthropic also publishes finance and legal plugin suites: anthropics/financial-services and anthropics/claude-for-legal. Both produce drafts for human review, and many connectors need paid data providers. The full reviewed list is on the Claude Code plugins page.
Safety before you add a plugin
Anthropic’s overview spells out the risk. A plugin’s skills and commands are instructions Claude follows, and its connectors reach outside services with the account you connect. Agents, hooks and connectors marked Runs in each session run commands on your computer. Anthropic reviews plugins listed in its directory, but that review does not cover a plugin you add from a marketplace URL or upload yourself, so add those only from sources you trust. The support article adds that local MCP servers in a plugin run on your computer with your own permissions.
Before you enable a plugin, read its skills, agents, hooks and connectors tabs. Connect only the connectors you need, with the least access the service allows. Prefer one plugin to a whole marketplace, and remove what you stop using from Customize > Plugins.
More on how we rate access and data flow is in our security overview and methodology. For installing skills in other agents, see how to install Claude skills.