Cowork Plugins — Connect Everything

🔌 What Are Cowork Plugins?

Before plugins, Claude only knew what you told it in a prompt or what lived in your local files. Plugins change that — they connect Claude directly to the tools your team already uses, giving it read and write access to your real data.

⚙️ MCP — The Protocol Behind Plugins

Plugins are built on MCP (Model Context Protocol) — an open standard created by Anthropic that defines how AI models communicate with external tools. You don't need to understand the protocol deeply, but knowing the basic architecture helps you reason about what's possible.

• Claude receives your prompt and decides what action to take
• The MCP server is a small program that translates Claude's intent into API calls for the connected tool
• Your tool (Notion, Linear, GitHub, etc.) receives the request and returns data or confirms the action

What plugins can do (and can't do)

🔗 Connecting Your First Plugin

Connecting a plugin is a one-time setup per tool. After that, it's available in every Claude Code session. Here's the exact process:

Installing via the MCP config (advanced)

For developers or custom setups, plugins can also be added directly to the MCP configuration file. Claude Code stores this at ~/.claude/settings.json.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "notion": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@anthropic-ai/mcp-server-notion"],
      "env": {
        "NOTION_API_KEY": "your-integration-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

📦 Plugins Catalog

These are the most-used plugins in the Cowork ecosystem. Each one gives Claude live read/write access to that tool.

💬 Using Plugins in Your Prompts

Once connected, you reference a plugin the same way you reference a file — just mention it naturally in your prompt. Claude figures out which plugin to use and what action to take.

Basic usage patterns

# Read — pull data into the conversation
"Using Notion, read the page called 'Q4 Roadmap' and summarize
the top 3 priorities."

# Write — push Claude's output to your tool
"Create a new Linear issue: title 'Fix checkout flow timeout',
priority High, assign to backend team."

# Cross-reference — combine data from multiple sources
"Read the Figma color tokens from the design file, then update
styles.css in this project to match them exactly."

# Summarize and write — process then push
"Read my last 5 Linear issues, identify the common theme,
and create a Notion page summarizing the pattern with recommended fixes."

Being specific about which workspace or project

If you have multiple workspaces or projects in a tool, tell Claude which one. Vague references slow it down — it has to ask for clarification.

❌ Vague
"Show me my issues"

✓ Specific
"In Linear, show all open issues in the 'Web App' project
assigned to me, sorted by priority."

❌ Vague
"Create a page in Notion"

✓ Specific
"In Notion, create a new page in the 'Engineering' workspace
called 'Week 17 Retrospective'. Use this template structure:
What went well / What didn't / Action items."

🔄 Multi-Plugin Workflows

The real unlock is combining plugins. Here are three ready-to-use workflows you can run today — each one replaces 20–30 minutes of manual work.

Workflow 1 — Meeting Notes → Action Items

Workflow 2 — Bug Report → Tracked Issue

Workflow 3 — Design → Code → PR