Plugin Marketplace

TL;DR

• Browse and install agent skills from curated GitHub-hosted marketplaces in minutes
• One-click skill import with live content preview — no manual copy-pasting
• MCP plugins auto-configure as connectors with pre-filled settings
• SHA-256 content hashing lets you check for upstream skill changes with one click

The problem: extending your agent is manual work

When your team finds useful investigation runbooks, MCP tool integrations, or specialized skills built by other teams, the adoption process is entirely manual. Browse GitHub repositories, read individual SKILL.md files, copy content field by field, create skills one-by-one, and configure MCP connectors by hand. There's no central catalog, no version tracking, and no way to know when a skill source has been updated.

For platform teams managing multiple agents, this scales poorly. Sharing skills across teams means pointing people to a repository and hoping they copy the right files. When a source publishes improvements, nobody knows until something breaks.

How the Plugin Marketplace works

The Plugin Marketplace adds a discovery and management layer to your agent's skill ecosystem:

1. Register marketplace sources — add curated GitHub repositories as plugin marketplaces. Start with the official Azure SRE Agent Plugins catalog, or add your team's own repository. Multiple plugin manifest formats are supported, including .github/plugin/marketplace.json and .claude-plugin/marketplace.json.

2. Browse and search — explore available plugins with search, filtering, and live previews. Each plugin card shows its name, description, version, author, and badges indicating skill availability and MCP requirements.

3. Preview before installing — click any plugin to see its full details: skill list with content preview, MCP server configurations, and a direct "View source" link to the plugin's folder on GitHub.

4. Import with a click — select the skills you want, click Import selected, and they're created in your agent immediately. Name conflicts with existing skills are handled automatically.

5. MCP plugins bridge to connectors — when a plugin includes MCP server configurations, each server gets an Add as connector button that opens the connector wizard pre-filled with the right command, arguments, URL, and custom headers.

6. Track and update — every imported skill records its source, version, and a SHA-256 content hash. Click Check for updates on any installed plugin to compare against the latest version in the source repository. When updates are available, review a side-by-side diff before applying changes.

What makes this different

Unlike browsing GitHub directly, the marketplace provides structured discovery with searchable catalogs, skill previews, and compatibility badges — not just repository file listings.

Unlike manual skill creation, imported plugins maintain provenance. You always know which repository a skill came from, what version was installed, and whether updates are available.

Unlike copy-pasting MCP configurations, the marketplace detects .mcp.json files automatically, classifies servers as supported or unsupported, and pre-fills the connector wizard — handling both flat and nested MCP config formats.

Before and after

	Before	After
Discovery	Browse GitHub repos manually	Search curated catalogs with filters
Installing skills	Copy SKILL.md content, create skill manually	Select skills, click Import selected
MCP setup	Find and parse .mcp.json, configure connector by hand	Add as connector with pre-filled settings
Update awareness	Manually check source repos for changes	One-click update check with SHA-256 hash comparison
Provenance	No tracking once skill is created	Source, version, and content hash recorded
Time per skill	10–15 minutes	~30 seconds

Marketplace formats

Your marketplace repository needs a manifest file in one of two supported locations:

Format	File path
GitHub Copilot	.github/plugin/marketplace.json
Other formats	.claude-plugin/marketplace.json

Standalone plugin.json files (at the repository root, .github/plugin/, or .claude-plugin/) also work for single-plugin repositories.

MCP config formats

Plugins can include MCP server configurations in .mcp.json. Two formats are supported:

Nested format (standard):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-server": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["server.js"],
      "env": { "API_KEY": "your-key" }
    }
  }
}

Flat format:

{
  "my-server": {
    "command": "node",
    "args": ["server.js"],
    "env": { "API_KEY": "your-key" }
  }
}

MCP servers are classified as:

• Supported — uses a command (stdio) or a URL with authentication headers
• Unsupported — requires OAuth or has a bare URL without headers (filtered out by default in the browse view)

Get started

→ Tutorial: Install a plugin from the marketplace

Related capabilities

Capability	What it adds
MCP Connectors →	How your agent connects to MCP tool servers
Skills →	Understanding what skills are and how the agent uses them
Connectors →	Data sources and tool integrations for your agent