Manage plugins and connectors

Who this is for: Tenant administrators and organization owners who provision plugins and connectors to the members they manage.

You provision plugins on the Plugins card and connectors on the Connectors card of the Config page in the admin portal. The card controls themselves are described under Tool and connector cards, and this page covers the tasks around them, from choosing between a plugin and a connector to keeping plugins up to date. To distribute skills to members, bundle them in a plugin, as described under Skills for administrators.

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Plugins versus connectors

A connector gives Claude access to another service, such as a search tool your agency runs, and the Connectors card is the way to deliver a connector to members. A plugin is a package that changes how Claude works. It can add skills, slash commands, and sub-agents, and it can carry hooks, which are scripts a plugin author includes to run automatically at defined points during a session, such as when a session starts. For adding a connector, see Connectors. For what a plugin can contain across Claude products, see the Plugins overview; the Claude for Government differences are covered below. A plugin you upload on the Plugins card delivers its skills, slash commands, sub-agents, and hooks to members, and its hooks run on the member’s machine. In Claude for Government, a connector declared in a plugin you upload here is not connected, so to give members a connector, add it on the Connectors card instead.

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Plugin archive formats

The Plugins card accepts a single .zip file. The file can be one plugin package or a marketplace archive that holds several plugins, such as the downloaded ZIP of a repository that publishes a set of plugins. A single plugin package can be up to 10 MB, and a marketplace archive can be up to 15 MB. When you upload a marketplace archive, the preview lists the plugins it found, and you select which ones to add. Only plugins whose files are packaged inside the archive are added, so an entry in the marketplace listing that points to a plugin hosted elsewhere is skipped. The plugins you add from one archive are grouped under a Tag, prefilled from the marketplace’s name, which lets you identify the set later. To refresh the set, upload a new version of the same marketplace archive with the same Tag. The preview lists any plugin you added from that marketplace before that the new version no longer contains, and you can remove those plugins in the same step.

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Plugins that run code

The upload preview marks any plugin that declares components that can run code on the member’s machine, for example hooks or an MCP server, and you confirm that you trust such a package before it is added. For a marketplace archive, one confirmation covers every marked plugin in the batch. After you add it, the plugin’s row on the Plugins card keeps a Runs code marker, so you can see at a glance which of your provisioned plugins contain these components. The marker reflects what a plugin declares. In Claude for Government, a marked plugin’s hooks run on the member’s machine at defined points during a session, its local MCP server never runs, and a connector declared in a plugin you upload here is not connected. Treat the marker as a prompt to review the package yourself. You are responsible for the plugins you distribute to members, so read each plugin’s contents before you upload it.

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Install behavior

Each plugin on the Plugins card has an install behavior that you set when you add it and can change later on its row. Auto-install installs the plugin on every member’s Claude Desktop without the member doing anything. Members choose offers the plugin to members, who install it themselves from their organization’s plugins in Claude Desktop, as described in Plugins in Claude Desktop. You do not need to push anything for a plugin to reach members. Claude Desktop syncs your organization’s plugin list when it starts and periodically while it runs, so an auto-installed plugin appears on its own, and a member who already has the application open receives it at the next sync. A member can remove a plugin you installed automatically, and it stays removed for that member. In Claude Desktop, members can also add plugins of their own, by uploading a plugin file or having Claude create one, as described in Plugins in Claude Desktop. Those plugins are separate from the ones you provision and do not appear on the Plugins card.

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Where plugins are provisioned

Plugins are provisioned at the tenant or organization level. Plugins the tenant adds flow to every organization and appear on each organization’s Plugins card under From levels above, as described under Tool and connector cards. A tenant administrator can lock the plugin list, which makes it read-only for organizations, following the lock behavior in How Config works. Group levels inherit the plugins of their tenant or organization, so the Plugins card is read-only when you view a group.

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Update or remove a plugin

To update a plugin, upload the new version’s archive. Because its name matches the plugin you provisioned, the upload updates that plugin, the preview marks the update before you save, and members who have the plugin receive the new version automatically. To remove a plugin, click its remove icon and save the change. Removing a plugin stops provisioning it, and there is not currently a way to uninstall a plugin remotely from members’ devices, so members who already installed it keep their copy until they remove it themselves, as described under Tool and connector cards.

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Connector tool policies for members

You add and edit connectors on the Connectors card, and for each one you choose the products that receive it and set a policy for each of its tools. See Connectors for the three-step wizard. On Claude Desktop, that tool policy shapes what members experience. A tool you switch off is blocked, so Claude cannot use it. A tool you switch on is available and asks the member on every use, and members are not offered a lasting approval for it. A tool you do not list is left to the member to turn on or off, and its approval prompts follow the member’s own choices, which can include lasting approval unless your organization turns that off.