"Marketplace" makes this sound bigger and more official than the mechanism actually is: it's a git repository with a specific file in it, and adding one is a single command. That simplicity is also exactly what makes it worth understanding before you install a Skill from a source you don't recognize.
A Claude Code marketplace is a git repository containing a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file that lists Skills or plugins available to browse and install. It can live on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, a self-hosted git server, or even a local directory — there's nothing that requires it to be run by Anthropic or hosted on any specific platform.
Three commands cover the whole workflow:
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-code # add a marketplace (owner/repo, a git URL, or a local path)
/plugin search # browse what's available in added marketplaces
/plugin marketplace update claude-plugins-official # refresh a marketplace's catalog/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-code adds Anthropic's own official marketplace specifically — it's one option, reachable by the same command as any third-party one.
Because the mechanism is just "a git repo with the right file in it," a number of independent, community-run sites have grown up cataloging Skills pulled from public repositories — searchable directories, curated top-N lists, that kind of thing. They can be a genuinely useful way to discover what exists. They are not reviewed or vetted by Anthropic, which matters for the next section.
Read the actual SKILL.md content in the source repository itself before installing — not just a marketplace listing's one-line description. Apply the same review standard you'd use for a new dependency going into a client project: who maintains it, does the repo have real history, and does what it actually instructs match what it claims to do.
A private git repository with the same marketplace.json structure works identically to a public one — the command doesn't care who can see the repo. For a team standardizing on a shared, already-reviewed set of Skills across client projects, this is the safer default: nobody's pulling from the public ecosystem for day-to-day work, and anything new gets reviewed once before it's added, not re-trusted on every project.
The Skills fundamentals and the team-consistency workflow this builds on are covered in two related guides below — start there if marketplaces are new to you.
Read Claude Code for Agencies →A Skill is one packaged capability — a SKILL.md file with instructions Claude Code follows when it's relevant. A marketplace is a catalog: a git repository with a marketplace.json file listing multiple Skills (or plugins) you can browse and install from in one place, instead of adding each one individually.
No. Adding a marketplace works with any git repository that has the right structure — GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, self-hosted, or a local directory. Anthropic's own marketplace is one option among many, not the only source.
Read the actual SKILL.md content in the source repository before installing, not just the marketplace listing's description. A Skill's instructions run automatically once triggered, so the same review judgment you'd apply to a dependency you're about to add to a client project applies here too.
Yes — a private git repository with the same marketplace.json structure works the same way as a public one. Teams that want a shared, vetted set of Skills without touching the public ecosystem at all typically go this route.