研究AI编程插件市场维护与协同演化，发现插件更新频繁且指令与代码同步变化。
On the Maintenance and Co-evolution of Agent Plugins: An Empirical Study of Claude Code Plugin Marketplaces
- 通过分析1926个仓库、8351个插件，追踪2018个市场的提交记录。
- 插件提交活动六个月内增长8.8倍，61.3%针对软件工程任务，功能更新超传统开源两倍。
- 指令文件与实现脚本在技能目录中高度协同演化，78%变更功能耦合，属新型维护依赖。
AI编程代理通过推理与工具使用自动化开发任务，正日益通过插件市场扩展。与传统软件包依赖源码不同，代理插件由自然语言指令文件、脚本和配置文件组合提供功能，引发其是否为持续维护的协同演化产物，还是仅一次性编写的静态资产的问题。本文对1,926个托管Claude Code插件市场的仓库进行实证研究，分析8,351个插件及77,773次提交，覆盖2,018个市场。结果表明，市场迅速扩张，插件相关提交活动在2025年10月发布后六个月内增长8.8倍；61.3%的插件面向软件工程任务。插件开发以功能驱动为主，功能类提交占比达39.6%，超过传统开源软件（17.2%）。Claude共同作者贡献了34.9%的提交，且文档、性能、格式与重构四类提交在插件库中含义显著异于传统软件。多数组件独立演化，但在技能目录内，自然语言指令文件与实现脚本呈现高于随机水平的协同演化，78%的共同修改具有功能耦合性，揭示出传统软件工程中未见的新类型维护依赖。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
AI coding agents, software tools that automate development tasks through reasoning and tool use, are increasingly extended through plugin marketplaces, yet the structure, maintenance, and co-evolution dynamics of these emerging repositories remain empirically unexplored. Unlike traditional software packages that deliver functionality through source code, agent plugins deliver functionality through a combination of natural-language instruction files, scripts, and configuration files, raising the question of whether these plugins are maintained artifacts that co-evolve across components, or one-off artifacts that developers write once and do not need to revisit. To study the maintenance and co-evolution of agent plugins, we conduct an empirical study of 1,926 repositories hosting Claude Code plugin marketplaces, analyzing 8,351 plugins and 77,773 commits across 2,018 marketplaces. We find that the marketplace is expanding rapidly, plugin-touching commit activity growing 8.8x over six months after the October 2025 launch, and plugins targeting Software Engineering tasks accounting for 61.3% of all plugins. Plugin development is predominantly feature-driven, with feature commits occurring at more than twice the rate of conventional open-source software (OSS) (39.6% vs. 17.2%). Claude co-authors 34.9% of all commits, and four commit types (docs, perf, style, and refactor) carry substantially different meanings in plugin repositories than in traditional software. Most component types evolve independently, but within skills directories, natural-language instruction files and implementation scripts co-evolve at above-chance rates, with 78% of co-changes being functionally coupled, representing a new class of maintenance dependency not observed in traditional software engineering.
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