Refresh Plugin Cache

Pull the latest l3digitalnet-plugins marketplace index, compare installed plugin versions against current listings, and surface anything stale or orphaned. The claude-plugins-official marketplace is managed by Anthropic and excluded from this workflow.

Workflow

Step 1 — Run the refresh script

bash .claude/skills/refresh-plugin-cache/scripts/refresh-cache.sh

Run from the project root (/home/chris/projects/Claude-Code-Plugins). The script does not modify installed plugin content — it only updates the marketplace index clones and reports status.

Step 2 — Interpret the output

MARKETPLACE INDEX REFRESH — One line per marketplace git clone:

Prefix	Meaning
OK	Already at latest main; SHA shown for confirmation
UPDATE	Pulled new commits; before → after SHAs shown
ERROR	git fetch failed — likely offline; cached data still usable
SKIP	Directory exists but is not a git repo

INSTALLED PLUGIN VERSION CHECK — Compares installed version (from installed_plugins.json) against the freshly-pulled marketplace listing, for l3digitalnet-plugins only. Does not reflect what is actually running — see LIVE MCP PROCESS CHECK below.

Label	Meaning
STALE	Installed version differs from marketplace; reinstall needed
CURRENT	Installed version matches marketplace

LIVE MCP PROCESS CHECK — Compares the version embedded in the path of each running Node.js MCP process against the version in installed_plugins.json:

Label	Meaning
LIVE_OK	Running process path version matches installed version
LIVE_SKEW	Running process started from an older path; installed_plugins.json was updated mid-session but Claude Code didn't restart the process. Normal reinstall won't fix this — use the hot-patch procedure below.
NOT_RUNNING	Plugin is installed but no live process found (MCP not started, or non-MCP plugin)

ORPHANED CACHE DIRS — Directories under ~/.claude/plugins/cache/l3digitalnet-plugins/<plugin>/ not referenced by any active install path. These include old version snapshots from prior installs and flat-format directories from early cache layouts — all safe to delete.

Step 3 — Summarize and act

After the script completes, present findings concisely:

• All current: confirm the cache is fully fresh.
• Stale plugins: list each with old → new version. Offer to guide reinstallation.
• Orphaned directories: list sizes, offer to delete with rm -rf.
• Fetch errors: note which marketplaces failed; cache reflects last-known state.

Reinstalling a Stale Plugin

Plugin content is a snapshot written at install time — the cache does not auto-update when a plugin is republished. To update:

1. Remove the stale entry from ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json (the plugin's key under "plugins").
2. Delete the stale cache directory: rm -rf ~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<plugin>/<version>/.
3. Reinstall: claude plugin install <plugin-name>@<marketplace>.

Alternatively, if the user wants to bulk-refresh all l3digitalnet plugins, re-adding the marketplace is the fastest path:

claude plugin remove-marketplace l3digitalnet-plugins
claude plugin add-marketplace <marketplace-url>
# then reinstall each plugin

Note for MCP server plugins: Steps 1–3 above update the registry and cache but do not update the live process. See "MCP Live Process Skew" below.

MCP Live Process Skew

When it occurs: Claude Code reads installed_plugins.json once at IDE startup and caches the MCP server command (path + args). Subsequent changes to installed_plugins.json — including a reinstall — are invisible to the running session. The old process keeps running from its original path until the session restarts.

Symptom: The LIVE PROCESS CHECK reports LIVE_SKEW: installed_plugins.json points to the new version path but the running process started from the old version path.

Why standard reinstall fails mid-session: Updating installed_plugins.json to point to the new path only affects the next session start. The current session's MCP command is already locked in.

Hot-patch fix (mid-session):

# 1. Overwrite the running version's dist with the new version's dist
cp ~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<plugin>/<NEW>/dist/index.js \
   ~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<plugin>/<RUNNING>/dist/index.js

# 2. Kill the old process — Claude Code will restart it from the (now-patched) path
kill <pid>
# PID appears in: ps aux | grep <plugin-name>

The hot-patch works because Claude Code restarts crashed MCP processes from the same cached command path. After the kill, it restarts from <RUNNING>/dist/index.js — which now contains the new code.

Clean fix (next session): After the hot-patch, update installed_plugins.json to point to <NEW> so the next session starts clean. No hot-patch needed at that point.

Key File Paths

Path	Purpose
~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<name>/	Git clone of each marketplace repo
~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json	Install registry — source of truth for what's loaded
~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<plugin>/<version>/	Installed plugin content snapshots

Important Constraints

• Marketplace cache tracks main, not testing — the index only reflects published/deployed versions. Commits on testing that haven't been merged to main will not appear as updates.
• Version comparison is exact string match — 0.3.0 vs v0.3.0 would show as stale even if semantically identical. The marketplace.json and plugin.json should use consistent formatting (no v prefix).
• SHA-versioned plugins (those from claude-plugins-official installed without a semver tag) are skipped because the marketplace may not expose a comparable version string.