Marketplace plugin cloning should default to HTTPS instead of SSH
Open 💬 5 comments Opened Feb 18, 2026 by pmatos
Problem
When installing a marketplace plugin via /plugin marketplace add owner/repo, Claude Code clones the repository using SSH (git@github.com:...). This fails for users who don't have SSH keys configured for GitHub:
Error: Failed to clone marketplace repository: SSH authentication failed. Please ensure your
SSH keys are configured for GitHub, or use an HTTPS URL instead.
Original error: Cloning into '/Users/user/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/owner-repo'...
git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
Why this is a problem
- Marketplace repositories are public and read-only — SSH authentication is unnecessary.
- HTTPS works out of the box with no configuration for public repos.
- Many users don't have SSH keys set up for GitHub, especially on fresh machines or if they primarily use HTTPS for their own repos.
- Most tools that clone public repos default to HTTPS for this reason (e.g.,
go get,cargo install,npm installfrom git URLs).
Current workaround
Users must either:
- Set up SSH keys for GitHub, or
- Configure Git globally to rewrite SSH to HTTPS:
git config --global url."https://github.com/".insteadOf git@github.com:
Both are unnecessary friction for a read-only clone of a public repo.
Suggested fix
Default to HTTPS (https://github.com/owner/repo.git) when cloning marketplace repositories. SSH could optionally be supported via a flag or configuration for users behind corporate proxies that block HTTPS but allow SSH.
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