claude-code-skills-reference/marketplace-dev/references/marketplace_schema.md

marketplace.json Complete Schema Reference

Source: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugin-marketplaces + https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins-reference Verified against Claude Code source code and claude plugin validate.

Root Level

Field	Type	Required	Description
name	string	Yes	Marketplace identifier, kebab-case. Users see this: plugin install X@<name>
owner	object	Yes	name (required string), email (optional string)
plugins	array	Yes	Array of plugin entries
metadata	object	No	See metadata fields below

metadata fields (ONLY these 3 are valid)

Field	Type	Description
metadata.description	string	Brief marketplace description
metadata.version	string	Marketplace catalog version (NOT plugin version)
metadata.pluginRoot	string	Base directory prepended to relative plugin source paths

Invalid metadata fields (silently ignored or rejected):

• metadata.homepage — does NOT exist in spec
• metadata.repository — does NOT exist in spec
• $schema — REJECTED by claude plugin validate

Plugin Entry Fields

Each entry in the plugins array. Can include any field from the plugin.json manifest schema, plus marketplace-specific fields.

Required

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Plugin identifier, kebab-case
source	string or object	Where to fetch the plugin

Standard metadata (from plugin.json schema)

Field	Type	Description
description	string	Brief plugin description
version	string	Plugin version (independent of metadata.version)
author	object	name (required), email (optional), url (optional)
homepage	string	Plugin homepage URL
repository	string	Source code URL
license	string	SPDX identifier (MIT, Apache-2.0, etc.)
keywords	array	Tags for discovery (currently unused in search)

Marketplace-specific

Field	Type	Description
category	string	Freeform category for organization
tags	array	Tags for searchability (only community-managed has UI effect)
strict	boolean	Default: true. Set false when no plugin.json exists

Component paths (from plugin.json schema)

Field	Type	Description
commands	string or array	Custom command file/directory paths
agents	string or array	Custom agent file paths
skills	string or array	Custom skill directory paths
hooks	string or object	Hook configuration or path
mcpServers	string or object	MCP server config or path
lspServers	string or object	LSP server config or path
outputStyles	string or array	Output style paths
userConfig	object	User-configurable values prompted at enable time
channels	array	Channel declarations for message injection

Source Types

Source	Format	Example
Relative path	string "./"	"source": "./"
GitHub	object	{"source": "github", "repo": "owner/repo"}
Git URL	object	{"source": "url", "url": "https://..."}
Git subdirectory	object	{"source": "git-subdir", "url": "...", "path": "..."}
npm	object	{"source": "npm", "package": "@scope/pkg"}

All object sources support optional ref (branch/tag) and sha (40-char commit).

Reserved Marketplace Names

Cannot be used: claude-code-marketplace, claude-code-plugins, claude-plugins-official, anthropic-marketplace, anthropic-plugins, agent-skills, knowledge-work-plugins, life-sciences.

Names impersonating official marketplaces are also blocked.