component-patterns

Component Lifecycle

Every plugin component goes through two phases — discovery at startup and activation at runtime.

Discovery Phase

When Claude Code starts, it processes each enabled plugin:

1. Scan enabled plugins — read .claude-plugin/plugin.json
2. Discover components — search default and custom paths
3. Parse definitions — read YAML frontmatter and configuration files
4. Register components — make available to Claude Code
5. Initialize — start MCP servers, register hooks

Discovery happens once during Claude Code initialization, not continuously. Components added after startup require a session restart to become available.

Activation Phase

Each component type activates through a different mechanism: