The best Claude plugins and skills in 2026: 16 worth installing (and how to stay safe)

Out of the box, Claude is a very good generalist. Plugins and skills turn it into a specialist that knows how to build your spreadsheet, review your code the way your team does, post to Slack or file a Jira ticket.

There are now more than 500 plugins in Anthropic’s catalogue, so here are the 16 most worth installing, grouped by what you do. Each comes with what it does, who made it, and how to stay safe.

We’ve already covered the best Claude connectors, the links to apps like Gmail and Spotify. This guide is about plugins and skills.

Plugins, skills and connectors: what’s the difference?

Anthropic defines them like this:

• A skill teaches Claude how to do a task: a folder with a SKILL.md file of instructions, sometimes with scripts and templates. Claude only reads it when your request matches, so skills don’t slow it down.
• A connector gives Claude access to an app or service, like your calendar, Slack or GitHub.
• A plugin is a package that can bundle skills, connectors, slash commands and agents together, so you install one thing instead of five.

Where to get them:

• Claude app (web, desktop, Cowork): go to Customize > Plugins or Customize > Skills. For skills, also turn on code execution and file creation under Settings > Capabilities.
• Claude Code: type /plugin to browse Anthropic’s official marketplace, which is added for you.
• Anything you add in the Claude app syncs to your account, so it shows up in Cowork and Claude Code too.

Which plans? Anthropic’s built-in document skills work for everyone with code execution on. Plugins from the directory, custom skills and Claude Code need a paid plan: Pro ($20 a month, or $17 billed yearly), Max (from $100), Ultra ($200), Team or Enterprise. Plugins themselves are free, but some connect to services that need their own paid account.

Anthropic’s own

1. Document skills: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF

These are built into Claude, and they’re why it can hand you a real .xlsx with formulas and charts, a formatted Word document, a slide deck, or a fillable PDF instead of a wall of text. Claude uses them automatically when you ask for one of those files. In Claude Code, install them from Anthropic’s skills repository as document-skills.

2. Skill Creator

The easiest way to make your own skill. Describe a task you repeat, like a weekly report, an email style or a checklist. Skill Creator interviews you, writes the SKILL.md, then tests it by running prompts with and without the skill and comparing the results. Free, by Anthropic.

3. Frontend Design

The most-installed plugin in Anthropic’s catalogue, with over 1.1 million installs. It makes Claude decide on a purpose, audience and visual style before it writes any interface code. The result is websites and apps that don’t have the generic “AI-made” look. For Claude Code.

4. Code Review

Type /code-review and Claude runs five review agents in parallel on a pull request. Each finding gets a confidence score, and only the high-confidence ones are posted to GitHub, which cuts down noisy comments. Around 440,000 installs.

5. Security Guidance

A safety net that warns about likely vulnerabilities before Claude writes or edits a file: injection, cross-site scripting, server-side request forgery, hard-coded secrets and more. It also reviews diffs and commits. Worth installing for anyone who lets Claude write code.

6. Feature Dev

/feature-dev walks Claude through a seven-phase workflow for building a feature. It explores the codebase, plans the architecture, builds, then reviews. Each phase has a specialised agent. Its sibling, Plugin Dev, gives you a guided /plugin-dev:create-plugin builder if you want to make plugins of your own.

For your job: Anthropic’s role-based plugins

7. Knowledge-work plugins: marketing, sales, finance and more

Built for Cowork, and also usable in Claude Code, these are free, open-source packs of commands for a role:

• Marketing: /draft-content, /campaign-plan, /seo-audit, /email-sequence
• Sales: prospect research, call prep, pipeline reviews and battlecards
• Finance: journal entries, reconciliations and variance analysis
• Also legal, customer support, product management, HR, data, operations and small business

They get more useful when you connect the tools you already use, like HubSpot, Slack, Canva or your data warehouse.

8. Claude for Financial Services

Plugins for financial models (comparable companies, DCF, LBO, three-statement models), investment banking, equity research, private equity and wealth management. They come with partner plugins from LSEG and S&P Global. Some data sources need a subscription, and Anthropic is clear that the output needs professional sign-off.

Productivity

9. Slack

Made by Slack itself. Claude can summarise channels, search conversations and draft or send messages, so “what did I miss in #launch?” becomes a one-line request. Works in Claude Code and Cowork. You’ll need access to a Slack workspace.

10. Atlassian: Jira and Confluence

Made by Atlassian. It comes with ready-made skills such as turn a spec into a backlog, triage an issue, generate a status report and capture tasks from meeting notes. It respects your existing Jira and Confluence permissions.

11. Notion

Notion’s official plugin pairs its connector with skills for capturing knowledge, turning meeting notes into action items, writing research docs and turning a spec into an implementation plan. Linear and Asana have official plugins too, if that’s where your team’s tasks live.

Looking for Gmail, Google Calendar or Drive? Those come through Anthropic’s own Google Workspace connectors, not a plugin. Be careful with unofficial “Google Workspace plugins” from third-party sites.

For developers

12. GitHub

GitHub’s official plugin lets Claude work with repositories, issues, pull requests and Actions, and check security alerts, all without leaving the chat or terminal. About 320,000 installs.

13. Vercel and Supabase

• Vercel’s plugin adds /deploy and /vercel-logs, so Claude can ship your app and read the logs when something breaks.
• Supabase’s plugin gives Claude 20+ tools for your database: SQL, migrations, auth, storage and Edge Functions.
• Also popular: Sentry for production errors, Context7 for up-to-date library documentation, and Microsoft’s Playwright for browser testing.

14. Figma

Figma’s plugin lets Claude read your designs, components and design tokens, then build them in code with /implement-design. It’s a big time-saver for turning mock-ups into working screens. Note that, unlike the others here, its listing doesn’t show the “Anthropic verified” label.

Creative

15. Canva

Canva’s plugin adds six skills on top of its connector:

• Edit safely, with a preview to approve before anything changes
• Resize a design for Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn in one step
• Check designs against your brand kit
• Bulk-create designs from a spreadsheet, which needs Canva Enterprise

Also worth a look: Adobe for Creativity, for batch photo edits and video resizing in Cowork, and HeyGen’s HyperFrames, which turns HTML into video.

From the community

16. Superpowers

Built by developer Jesse Vincent and free under the MIT licence, Superpowers is the second most-installed plugin in Anthropic’s marketplace, with about 1 million installs. It teaches Claude disciplined habits: brainstorm first, write a plan, test-driven development, systematic debugging and code review. It’s listed in Anthropic’s official marketplace, but Anthropic didn’t build it.

Are plugins and skills safe?

They’re powerful because they can do things, which is also the risk. Anthropic’s own guidance:

• A Claude Code plugin can run code on your computer with your permissions. Its hooks and servers run outside Claude’s sandbox.
• Plugins in Anthropic’s directory get an automated security scan, and a person reviews each new listing. Plugins from third-party marketplaces or files you upload aren’t reviewed.
• For skills, use ones you made yourself or got from Anthropic, and read a skill’s files before turning it on, even if a colleague shared it. The main risks are prompt injection and data theft.
• Auto-updates can change a plugin after you’ve checked it.
• Turn off what you don’t use. Every enabled plugin adds a little to each conversation, and fewer plugins means less to trust.

How to make your own skill

1. Ask Claude to use Skill Creator, or write a folder with a SKILL.md file.
2. Give it a name (lowercase, hyphens) and a description that says what it does and when to use it.
3. Keep the instructions under about 500 lines, and put longer reference material in separate files.
4. Never put passwords or API keys in a skill; use a connector instead.
5. Zip the folder and upload it under Customize > Skills, or drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for Claude Code.

FAQ

Are Claude plugins free? The plugins themselves are free. Most need a paid Claude plan, and some connect to services, like Slack or Canva Enterprise, that have their own costs.

Do skills work on the free plan? Anthropic’s built-in document skills do, as long as code execution is on. Anthropic’s pages disagree on custom skills for free users, so check your Customize page. Plugins need a paid plan.

What’s the most popular Claude plugin? On Anthropic’s marketplace, Frontend Design (about 1.1 million installs), followed by the community-built Superpowers (about 1 million).

Do plugins work in Claude Code and the Claude app? Mostly. Skills, commands and remote connectors work everywhere. Agents and hooks only run in Cowork and Claude Code.

Related: the best Claude connectors, how to build your first AI agent in Claude Code and what is MCP?