Third-party marketplace plugins don't auto-update on session start

[costajohnt]

Problem

Plugins installed from third-party marketplaces (via /plugin marketplace add <user>/<repo>) don't get auto-updated on session start, while plugins from claude-plugins-official do.

Evidence

Looking at ~/.claude/plugins/known_marketplaces.json, the official marketplace gets pulled on every session start, but third-party marketplaces appear to stop being pulled after the initial installation day.

Git reflog from ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/oss-autopilot/ (third-party):

17:05 PST — manual pull (user-initiated)
14:20 PST — auto pull (last automatic pull, day of install)
13:46 PST — auto pull
12:03 PST — initial clone

Git reflog from ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/claude-plugins-official/:

16:58 PST — auto pull (pulled on session start, hours after the third-party marketplace stopped updating)
11:49 PST — initial clone

The auto-update at 16:58 updated all official plugins (lastUpdated: "2026-02-19T00:58:57.xxx" across the board in installed_plugins.json) but did not re-pull or re-check the third-party marketplace.

known_marketplaces.json timestamps:

• claude-plugins-official.lastUpdated: 2026-02-19T00:59:24.174Z (updated on latest session start)
• oss-autopilot.lastUpdated: 2026-02-18T22:20:00.741Z (stale — not updated on latest session start)

Expected Behavior

Third-party marketplaces should be auto-pulled on session start with the same frequency as the official marketplace, so that new plugin versions are discovered automatically.

Actual Behavior

The marketplace clone at ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<name>/ goes stale after the initial install day. New versions pushed to the repo are never discovered. The user has to manually cd into the marketplace clone and git pull, then re-install the plugin.

Reproduction

1. /plugin marketplace add <your-github-user>/<your-plugin-repo>
2. /plugin install <plugin-name>@<marketplace-name>
3. Push a new version to the repo (bump version in .claude-plugin/plugin.json)
4. Start a new Claude Code session
5. The plugin stays on the old version — the marketplace clone is not pulled

Workaround

Manually pull the marketplace clone:

cd ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name> && git pull

Then re-install:

/plugin install <plugin>@<marketplace>

Environment

• Claude Code (latest as of 2026-02-18)
• macOS (Darwin 25.2.0)

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. Plugin cache never refreshes - autoUpdate doesn't update what Claude reads #17361
2. Plugin marketplace cache not updated before install/update #16866
3. [BUG] /plugin update does not invalidate plugin cache #14061

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[costajohnt]

This is not a duplicate of the linked issues. Those three issues (#17361, #16866, #14061) are all about the cache layer not being invalidated after a marketplace repo is updated. This issue is upstream of that — the marketplace repo itself is never git-pulled for third-party marketplaces on session start.

Root cause (from analyzing the binary):

The auto-update gate function checks:

autoUpdate ?? (hardcodedOfficialSet.has(name) && !blocklist.has(name))

Since third-party marketplaces don't have autoUpdate set in their known_marketplaces.json entry, and they're not in the hardcoded official set, the nullish coalescing falls through to false. Only claude-plugins-official (or whatever names are in that hardcoded set) get auto-pulled.

Third-party marketplaces have no way to opt into auto-update — the autoUpdate property isn't exposed during /plugin marketplace add.

Suggested fix: Either default autoUpdate to true for all marketplaces, or expose it as a user-configurable option during marketplace add/config.

[diegomarino]

I was also affected by this bug, so until it's fixed I've shared a plugin /plugin-updater that every hour tries to update 3rd party plugins via a SessionStart hook

[kitaekatt]

Possible fix in Claude Code 2.1.74

Testing on Claude Code 2.1.74 (macOS), third-party marketplace auto-update appears to be working correctly now.

Test setup

• Third-party marketplace (update04) registered in known_marketplaces.json with autoUpdate: true
• Plugin update at v1.0.2 installed from that marketplace

Results

1. Pushed v1.0.3 to the marketplace remote
2. Started a new Claude Code session → marketplace pulled, plugin updated to 1.0.3, new cache directory created
3. Immediately pushed v1.0.4 to the marketplace remote
4. Started another new Claude Code session → marketplace pulled again, plugin updated to 1.0.4

Both consecutive auto-updates triggered on session start with no cooldown. The lastUpdated timestamp in known_marketplaces.json was updated each time.

This suggests the bug may be resolved in recent versions. Can others on 2.1.74+ confirm?

[stubartmess]

On 2.1.72, my third-party marketplaces are auto-updating. This seems to have been fixed in the last few weeks.