IANS Claude Skills

Public marketplace of Claude Code and Claude Cowork plugins published by IANS.

This repo publishes Claude plugins (skills + supporting assets). Plugins that talk to IANS require the user to connect the IANS MCP server (see each plugin README). Some plugins ship a full skill in-repo (workflow, prompts, scripts); others may remain thin routers over a hosted workflow.

Available plugin and skills

| Plugin | Skill | Description | | --- | --- | --- | | ians | request-ask-an-expert | Submit a faculty-led Ask-an-Expert (AAE) request to IANS. Form-shaped review, Python validation/submission helpers, connector-only submit path with graceful failure when the MCP is unavailable. Submit-only in this release. |

Installation

From inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add ians-research/ians-plugin
/plugin install ians@ians-tools

Installing the ians plugin enables every IANS skill it contains.

How these plugins are structured

Each plugin lives under plugins/<name>/ with a .claude-plugin/plugin.json manifest and one or more skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md directories. The ians plugin is the IANS bundle: every IANS-branded skill lives under plugins/ians/skills/, so they share one plugin root and can chain to each other via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md. Each skill ships its supporting assets (e.g. scripts/ for Python helpers, evals/ for repeatable checks) alongside its SKILL.md.

This layout follows Anthropic's plugin marketplaces and plugins reference spec.

Repository layout

ians-plugin/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── marketplace.json            # marketplace catalog
└── plugins/
    └── ians/                       # IANS bundle (one plugin, many skills)
        ├── .claude-plugin/
        │   └── plugin.json         # plugin manifest
        ├── README.md
        └── skills/
            └── request-ask-an-expert/
                ├── SKILL.md
                ├── scripts/        # draft, validate, submit, poll-fit check
                └── evals/          # scenario fixtures (dev-only, not shipped)

Adding a new IANS skill

Drop a new directory under plugins/ians/skills/<skill-name>/:

plugins/ians/skills/<new-skill-name>/
├── SKILL.md
└── scripts/        # optional, Python or shell helpers

scripts/build-skill-zip.mjs walks plugins//skills/, so the new skill is auto-discovered — no marketplace.json edits required. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full SKILL.md frontmatter contract (including the metadata.description_short rule for Claude.ai/Desktop uploads), validation steps, and the public-release hygiene checklist.

Adding a new (non-IANS) plugin

For a plugin that is not an IANS skill, create a sibling directory under plugins/:

plugins/<plugin-name>/
├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json
├── README.md
└── skills/<skill-name>/
    └── SKILL.md

Then add a corresponding entry to .claude-plugin/marketplace.json with a repo-relative "source": "./plugins/<plugin-name>". A relative source must start with ./ — the bare-name shorthand ("source": "<plugin-name>") fails claude plugin validate. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the marketplace-entry field reference.

Releasing skill zips (for Claude.ai / Claude Desktop)

Claude Code installs plugins straight from this repo. To make a skill usable on Claude.ai (web) or Claude Desktop, end users instead upload a .zip of the skill via Settings → Capabilities → Skills. This repo ships a builder that produces those zips.

Prereqs: Node.js 20+.

npm install
npm run build:skills           # builds every skill under plugins/*/skills/*
npm run build:skill -- ians    # build one plugin only (by plugin directory name)
node scripts/build-skill-zip.mjs --check       # validate without writing zips

Each skill produces dist/<skill-name>-<version>.zip and a matching .sha256. The zip contains a single top-level <skill-name>/ directory with SKILL.md at its root, which is the layout Claude.ai expects. Developer-only files (evals/, __pycache__, *.pyc, .DS_Store, etc.) are excluded automatically.

Frontmatter rules the builder enforces. Claude.ai caps the SKILL.md description at 200 characters, but the Claude Code marketplace tolerates a much longer trigger paragraph. To keep one source SKILL.md that works for both, add a description_short under metadata::

---
name: my-skill
description: "Long, trigger-rich description used by Claude Code..."
metadata:
  version: "0.1.0"
  description_short: "Short (<=200 char) summary used in the Claude.ai/Desktop upload."
---

The builder substitutes description_short into the zipped SKILL.md's description and drops the description_short helper. If description_short is missing and the long description is over 200 chars, the build fails with a clear message.

Packaging a whole plugin (Claude Desktop "Upload Plugin")

To install an entire IANS plugin in Claude Desktop (Personal plugins → + → Create Plugin → Upload Plugin), upload a single bundle of the whole plugin rather than a per-skill zip. This repo ships a builder for that too.

npm install
npm run build:plugins          # bundles every plugin under plugins/*
npm run build:plugin -- ians   # bundle one plugin only (by directory name)
node scripts/build-plugin-bundle.mjs --check   # validate without writing files

Each plugin produces three files in dist/:

| File | Use | | --- | --- | | <plugin>-<version>.zip | Whole-plugin bundle. Upload via "Upload Plugin". | | <plugin>-<version>.plugin | Byte-identical copy with the .plugin extension; uploads the same way. | | <plugin>-<version>.zip.sha256 | Checksum of the zip (also matches the .plugin, since they're identical). |

The bundle's archive root is the plugin root: .claude-plugin/plugin.json sits at the top with skills/ (and any commands/, agents/, hooks/) beside it — never nested inside .claude-plugin/. Each SKILL.md gets the same description_short frontmatter rewrite as the skill zips, and developer-only files (evals/, __pycache__, *.pyc, etc.) are excluded.

.zip and .plugin are interchangeable

Claude Desktop's "Upload Plugin" file picker accepts both .zip and .plugin, and both upload successfully — they're byte-identical, only the extension differs. Hand users whichever they prefer.

> Claude Code users don't need this bundle at all — they install straight from the marketplace (/plugin install ians@ians-tools, see Installation).

Releasing plugin bundles (CI)

Cutting a release

Tag a commit with a v* tag and push it. The release workflow builds every plugin bundle and attaches the .zip, .plugin, and .sha256 files to a GitHub Release. Per-skill skill zips are not published to releases — if you need one for the Claude.ai/Desktop Skills-upload path, build it locally with npm run build:skills.

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

Pull requests run the plugin-bundle builder in --check mode — which also validates each skill's SKILL.md frontmatter — so regressions surface in CI before merge.

Trust and safety

These plugins may call tools on the IANS platform MCP server. Review the source of any plugin in this repo before installing. For questions about the IANS platform itself, contact support@iansresearch.com.

License

See LICENSE.