Six Tech Giants Unify Agent Plugin Standard, Leaving Anthropic Out
新智元 · wechat · 2026-08-07
OpenAI, Microsoft, GitHub, AWS, Anysphere (Cursor), and Vercel have jointly released the Agent Plugins 1.0.0 open specification. It aims to standardize the "packaging" of AI agent plugins, allowing developers to build a plugin once and run it across all compatible clients, eliminating repetitive packaging workflows.
Core Mechanism & Limitations
- Unified Shell: The spec defines a plugin as a folder containing a plugin.json manifest, a skills/ directory, and an mcp.json config. It standardizes only the outer packaging format, leaving proprietary features like hooks and slash commands untouched.
- Runtime Not Unified: Currently a "Working Draft," the spec only covers component discovery and packaging. It leaves the engineering chain—installation, distribution, permissions, sandboxing, and authentication—entirely to individual clients.
Anthropic's Absence
The new standard's structure closely mirrors Anthropic's existing Claude Code plugin system. However, Anthropic—the pioneer of this packaging approach—was notably absent from the core maintainers list. The article notes this aligns with Anthropic's historical preference for building its own closed-loop ecosystem, while rival giants are standardizing the baseline to shift competition toward plugin ecosystems and developer acquisition.
Related event: OpenAI and Partners Launch Agent Plugins Open Standard(17 posts)→
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