You know how sometimes you go to a restaurant, order the pasta, and they bring you a pizza instead, and somehow it's exactly what you wanted?
That's basically the origin story of PluginSmith.
Let me explain.
The Mistaken Order That Started It All
A few weeks ago, I found myself deep in the Claude Code plugin rabbit hole. You know the type. It's 11 PM You've got six tabs open, copy-pasting YAML frontmatter from documentation, manually creating directory structures, and questioning your life choices.
I was building a Claude Code plugin. Not a complicated one. Just a few slash commands, a skill or two, maybe an agent. Should've been quick. Like ordering a coffee.
Instead, I got a seven-course meal of boilerplate.
Config files. Folder structures. YAML headers. Markdown templates. JSON manifests. Each one slightly different. Each one requiring you to remember which field goes where. It's like being a chef who has to handwrite the recipe card before every single dish. Nobody became a developer to write frontmatter.
So naturally, like any reasonable developer at 11 PM, I thought: "I should build an app for this."
This is what we call a Mistaken Order. I ordered "one quick plugin." I received "an entire macOS application project." The kitchen got confused. But the kitchen was me. And I was confused.
Classic.
What Even Is PluginSmith?
PluginSmith is a free, native macOS app that turns your documentation into production-ready Claude Code plugins.
Here's the three-step workflow. Yes, there are only three steps. I counted. Multiple times. Because I kept expecting more.
Import: Drop in your Markdown, PDF, Word docs, Excel files, or paste a URL. PluginSmith reads and parses everything locally on your Mac. Your data goes nowhere. It just sits there. Like a cat.
Configure: This is where it gets fun. You define your commands, skills, agents, hooks, and MCP servers. Or, and this is the part that made me feel like I was living in the future, you click "Analyze Sources" and let AI read your docs and suggest the entire plugin structure for you. It's like having a sous chef who actually read the recipe before service started.
Generate: One click. Everything gets generated. All the files, all the folders, all the YAML, all the frontmatter. You can install it directly to Claude's local marketplace, export to a folder, or package it up to share. Done. Go home. Have a life.
That's it. That's the dish.
But Roel, Why Is It Free?
Ah, the question every developer dreads. Because it usually means someone is about to explain why you should monetize your side project with a SaaS model, a waitlist, and a Discord server with 47 channels.
Here's my answer: because I built it for me.
I needed this tool. It didn't exist, so I made it. Once it existed, charging for it felt like charging someone for directions to the bathroom. Sure, technically you could, but why would you?
PluginSmith is open source under the MIT License. That means you can use it, modify it, fork it, put it in a blender, and serve it as a smoothie. I don't care. The only cost is your Anthropic API key, which you provide. Like BYOB, but for AI.
Think of it this way: the restaurant is free. You just need to bring your own ingredients for the AI-powered dishes. The regular menu items work without any ingredients at all.
Why Open Source?
Because I've spent enough years in enterprise software to know that the best tools are the ones people can actually look inside.
When something breaks (and something always breaks), this is a restaurant of mistaken orders, after all. You should be able to open the kitchen door and see what's burning. With open source, you can. With proprietary software, you get a "we're looking into it" and a support ticket number that may or may not correspond to an actual human.
Also, honestly? Building in public is more fun. Someone might look at my Swift code and think "wow, that's elegant." More likely, they'll think "why did he do it that way?" and submit a pull request. Either way, the dish gets better.
What Can You Actually Build With It?
Glad you asked. Here's what PluginSmith generates:
Slash Commands: Those `/do-something` commands that make you feel like a hacker in a movie
Skills: Specialized instruction sets with references and examples
Agents: Autonomous agents with specific tools, models, and workflows
Hooks: Event-based triggers (session start, tool use, prompt submission)
MCP Servers: Full Model Context Protocol server configs
All properly formatted. All following the official spec. All without you having to remember whether it's `allowed_tools` or `allowedTools` (it's `allowed_tools`, by the way, and yes I got it wrong multiple times before building this app).
The Mistaken Order Philosophy
Here's the thing about mistakes. They're not bugs. They're surprise features.
I didn't set out to build a macOS application. I set out to build one plugin. The app was the mistaken order. But like every great mistaken order at this restaurant, it turned out to be exactly what was needed.
If you're building Claude Code plugins or thinking about it, give PluginSmith a try. It's free, it's open source, and the worst that can happen is you save a few hours of your life.
And if you find a bug? Well, you know where you are. Mistaken orders are kind of our specialty.
Download: https://pluginsmith.app
Source Code: https://github.com/vRoozendaal/PluginSmith
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/mistakenorders
Bon appétit! 🍽️
Roel van Roozendaal
Chief Chef of Mistaken Orders
P.S. If you enjoy the app, a coffee always helps keep the kitchen running. And if you don't enjoy it, a coffee still helps. I'll need the energy to fix whatever you found.
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