Claude private plugin marketplace

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I’ve been using Claude for a few months now.

Mainly Claude Cowork in the desktop app and Code in the VS Code extension.

Along the way, I’ve been creating multiple skills and connectors for things I do repeatedly.

The main problem was the lack of a simple way to share them/keep them in sync between apps.

It was either manually doing it or accepting the drift.

Keeping things only locally was also a risk.

A (not-so-)quick win

One night, I decided to tackle it and set up a private repo in GitHub with all my skills to keep a single source of truth with versioning.

Well… The rabbit hole was longer than expected: I went to bed at 3 AM. 

I was really happy with the result, though. I slept like a baby.

Consolidation

I reviewed all the skills I had in Claude Code, Cowork and some that were at a project level but I wanted to reuse. Some were clear duplicates, and some others were quite similar.

A couple of custom MCPs required a clean-up too. My MCPs were only available either in Cowork or in Code, but I needed to trigger them sometimes from VS Code and some other times from Cowork / Chat.

Claude itself helped me convert the initial skill repository into a private Claude private plugin marketplace (it was basically a change in the structure, plus a manifest indicating what’s inside). 

I even created a meta-skill to help me manage them.

Distribution

After some iterations with zip files and synchronisation scripts, the final version was rather simple:

  • Claude Code: one directory symlink, set once — ln -s <repo>/skills ~/.claude/skills. Every skill (including future ones) is visible automatically, and edits are live even in open sessions (SKILL.md bodies are read on invocation). The ruben-skills plugin is NOT installed in Code (it would duplicate the symlinked skills).
  • Chat / Cowork: the ruben-skills plugin, installed from this repo as a personal marketplace (Customise> Plugins > Add marketplace > from repository). Syncs from GitHub. Changes arrive on push. Skills appear namespaced (ruben-skills:work-note).

Steps

I’m not adding a step-by-step guide because things change too fast, so this might be already obsolete when you read it.

Just ask Claude about Private plugin marketplaces + GitHub + symlinks and let it guide you based on your previous knowledge.

Other considerations

  • If you are not using both Claude Code and Claude Cowork / Chat, you don’t need a marketplace, but you can still benefit from having everything organised and backed up in a repo.
  • Skills are Markdown files that are easy to export to other AI tools. The marketplace is Claude-specific. Not a problem for me right now, but you should always consider the risk of vendor lock-in.
  • This was just for my personal stuff, but a marketplace is a great way to share within a team and make sure you are all on the same page.

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