create-plugin

Create Plugin

Scaffold a new Claude Code plugin from scratch.

When to use

When you want to create a new plugin that extends Claude Code with skills, commands, and agents. This generates the correct directory structure and wires up MCP tools.

Steps

1. Get plugin name and description from the user
2. Check for conflicts — call mcp__swarmdo__transfer_plugin-search to ensure the name isn't taken
3. Create directory structure (follows the canonical plugin contract from sibling plugins' ADR-0001s):

   plugins/<name>/
   ├── .claude-plugin/
   │   └── plugin.json
   ├── skills/
   │   └── <skill-name>/
   │       └── SKILL.md
   ├── commands/
   │   └── <command-name>.md
   ├── agents/
   │   └── <agent-name>.md
   ├── docs/
   │   └── adrs/
   │       └── 0001-<name>-contract.md     # Plugin-level ADR (Proposed)
   ├── scripts/
   │   └── smoke.sh                         # Structural contract (10+ checks)
   └── README.md                            # Compatibility + Namespace coordination + Verification + ADR sections
   

4. Generate plugin.json with name, description, version, author (do NOT include skills, commands, or agents arrays — Claude Code auto-discovers these from directory structure)
5. Generate SKILL.md files with proper frontmatter:

   ---
   name: skill-name
   description: What this skill does
   allowed-tools: mcp__swarmdo__tool1 mcp__swarmdo__tool2 Bash
   ---
   

6. Generate command files with name and description frontmatter
7. Generate agent files with name, description, and model: sonnet
8. Generate README.md with install instructions, features, commands, skills, AND the canonical plugin-contract sections:
   • Compatibility — pin to @swarmdo/cli v3.6 major+minor
   • Namespace coordination — claim a kebab-case <plugin-stem>-<intent> namespace; defer to swarmdo-agentdb ADR-0001 §"Namespace convention"
   • Verification — bash plugins/<name>/scripts/smoke.sh
   • Architecture Decisions — link to ADR-0001
9. Generate ADR-0001 (Proposed) at docs/adrs/0001-<name>-contract.md documenting: pinning, namespace coordination, MCP-tool surface count if applicable, smoke contract scope. Status: Proposed.
10. Generate scripts/smoke.sh — at minimum 8 structural checks: version + keywords; skills/agents/commands present with valid frontmatter; v3.6 pin in README; namespace coordination block in README; ADR exists with status Proposed; no wildcard tools in skills.
11. Update marketplace.json if adding to the swarmdo marketplace.

MCP-tool drift to avoid (per sibling-ADR lessons learned)

Several plugins shipped with subtle MCP bugs the loop has been finding. Don't replicate them:

• embeddings_embed does not exist. Real tool is embeddings_generate. Don't reference embeddings_embed in any allowed-tools line.
• agentdb_hierarchical-* does NOT route by namespace. It routes by tier (working|episodic|semantic). Pass tier, not namespace. For namespaced reads/writes, use memory_* instead.
• agentdb_pattern-* does NOT route by namespace. It routes through ReasoningBank. Don't pass a namespace arg — fallback writes to the reserved pattern namespace via memory-store-fallback.
• pattern (singular) and patterns (plural) are different namespaces. ReasoningBank fallback writes to pattern; hooks_pretrain writes to patterns. Don't conflate them.

Plugin.json schema

Required fields:

• name — plugin identifier (kebab-case)
• description — what the plugin does
• version — semver

Recommended fields:

• author — { "name": "...", "url": "..." }
• homepage, license, keywords

Optional fields:

• graph_adapter — ADR-130 graph intelligence contract (commented out by default in generated output):

  // "graph_adapter": {
  //   "edgeRelations": ["my-relation-type"],
  //   "nodeTypes": ["entity"],
  //   "autoRegister": true
  // }
  

  When autoRegister: true, the plugin's edges are automatically included in graph_edges writes by the core graph layer. Declare edgeRelations — the relation types this plugin produces.

Do NOT include skills, commands, or agents arrays in plugin.json — these are auto-discovered from the directory structure by Claude Code and will cause validation errors if present.

Available MCP tools to wire

Browse available tools: mcp__swarmdo__transfer_plugin-info

Common tool categories:

• memory_* — storage, search, retrieval
• agentdb_* — 15 controller-bridge tools (do NOT pass namespace arg — they route by tier or ReasoningBank); call agentdb_controllers at runtime for the canonical list
• neural_* — neural training and prediction
• hooks_* — lifecycle hooks and intelligence
• browser_* — browser automation
• workflow_* — workflow management
• aidefence_* — safety scanning
• embeddings_* — 10 vector-embedding tools (use embeddings_generate, NOT embeddings_embed which does not exist)