Installing AI Agent Plugins

WarningExperimental feature

AI Agent Plugins is an experimental feature that an administrator must enable. Experimental features might change or be removed in future releases.

An AI agent plugin is a bundle of extensions for AI coding tools, such as skills, sub-agents, slash commands, hooks, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Language Server Protocol (LSP) servers. Plugins use the Claude Code plugin format and install into tools such as Claude Code and VS Code. A plugin can be as small as a single skill.

Your administrator creates an agent plugin repository (a plugins repository) in Posit Package Manager. You can then install its plugins into your AI coding tools, such as Claude Code and VS Code. A plugin can include skills, sub-agents, slash commands, hooks, and MCP and LSP servers. Package Manager serves plugins over a read-only Git endpoint. Your tool installs them with its standard “add marketplace” workflow against a Package Manager URL.

The repository is served at:

https://<package-manager-address>/<repo>/latest/marketplace.git

Replace <package-manager-address> with your Package Manager server address and <repo> with the repository name. The exact URL is available on the Setup page of your agent plugin repository in the Package Manager web interface, and on each plugin’s detail page.

Note

Because the endpoint is a standard git remote, any tool that can install plugins or skills from a git repository can use a Package Manager agent plugin repository. The recipes below cover the most common tools.

Claude Code

Add the repository as a marketplace, then install plugins from it. The marketplace name is the repository name (<repo>):

Terminal
claude plugin marketplace add https://<package-manager-address>/<repo>/latest/marketplace.git
claude plugin install <plugin>@<repo>

VS Code

In VS Code, open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows/Linux), run the Chat: Install Plugin from Source command, and provide the repository URL:

https://<package-manager-address>/<repo>/latest/marketplace.git

npx skills

The skills CLI installs a plugin’s skills into the skills directory of any agent that reads the shared skills format. Run it against the repository URL:

Terminal
npx skills add https://<package-manager-address>/<repo>/latest/marketplace.git

This is the recommended path for agents that have no marketplace command of their own, such as Codex and Cursor. Target a specific agent with --agent:

Terminal
npx skills add https://<package-manager-address>/<repo>/latest/marketplace.git --agent codex

Pinning a version

Plugin versions are immutable, and each version is published as a git tag of the form <plugin>-v<version>. To install a specific version instead of the latest, check out or reference that tag with your tool’s git ref support. For example, to pin the my-plugin plugin to version 1.2.0, reference the tag my-plugin-v1.2.0.

Private repositories

If your administrator has restricted the agent plugin repository to authenticated users, you authenticate to it with a Package Manager API token. Because the repository is a standard git remote served over a read-only Git endpoint, clients authenticate using HTTP Basic authentication with the username __token__ and your API token as the password. This is the same way git authenticates to any private repository. No Package Manager-specific tooling is required.

You can create an API token from the Package Manager web interface. See Signing In for more information about obtaining a token.

There are two ways to supply the token, and they apply across all of the tools above:

Embed the token in the URL

Add __token__:<your-token>@ to the URL and use that everywhere you use the plain URL:

https://__token__:<your-token>@<package-manager-address>/<repo>/latest/marketplace.git
Warning

Tools that remember a marketplace by its URL (such as Claude Code) store the URL (including the embedded token) in their on-disk configuration in plain text. Prefer a git credential helper (below) when you do not want the token written to a tool’s config, or use a token scoped only to the repository you need (repos:read).

Use a git credential helper

Because the endpoint is a standard git remote, the tools shell out to git, which honors your existing git credential configuration. You can use the plain (token-free) URL with any tool and let git supply the credentials. For example, store credentials in ~/.netrc:

~/.netrc
machine <package-manager-address>
login __token__
password <your-token>

or configure a credential helper (git config --global credential.helper ...). When git needs credentials for the endpoint, supply __token__ as the username and your token as the password. This keeps the token out of each tool’s own configuration.

Package detail pages

Each plugin in the Package Manager web interface has a detail page. Depending on how your administrator has configured the repository, a plugin’s detail page might display:

  • Custom metadata: administrator-defined key-value pairs such as a risk score, team owner, or approval status.
  • Custom tabs: additional tabs linking to external or embedded pages (for example, a Docs tab or a Setup guide), added by an administrator using rspm create metadata with a tab.* key.
  • README: if the plugin bundle includes a top-level README.md, the detail page renders its contents.
  • Other Versions: a list of all published versions of the plugin, allowing you to reference or pin to a specific version.

Contact your administrator if you need metadata or tabs added to a plugin.

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