Release Channels (stable & beta)

alexmskills ships two marketplace channels from one repository:

Channel Marketplace Contents

stable

alexmskills (.claude-plugin/marketplace.json)

Released, versioned plugins. What most users install.

beta

alexmskills-beta (beta/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json)

Unreleased and in-progress plugins. Unstable; expect breaking changes.

The beta channel is a git subdirectory (beta/) that is its own marketplace root, so both channels live on main and a plugin is "released" by physically moving it into the stable catalog.

Opting into beta

Add the beta channel alongside stable via a git-subdir source in .claude/settings.json:

{
  "extraKnownMarketplaces": {
    "alexmskills-beta": {
      "source": { "source": "git-subdir", "url": "alexmond/alexmskills", "path": "beta" }
    }
  }
}

Then /plugin install <name>@alexmskills-beta. To evaluate without installing:

claude --plugin-dir ./beta/plugins/<name>

Authoring & promoting

Step Command

Scaffold a beta plugin

make new-beta NAME=<name>

Validate both channels

make validate

Promote beta → stable

make promote PLUGIN=<name>

make promote moves beta/plugins/<name> → plugins/<name>, removes the entry from the beta catalog, and adds it to the stable catalog. Afterwards, set a real release version with make bump PLUGIN=<name> VERSION=1.0.0 and add a documentation page.

Beta plugins start at version 0.x by convention; promotion is the moment they earn a 1.0.0.