[FEATURE] Plugin refresh: no way to pull latest version of a marketplace plugin

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Summary:

When a plugin is distributed via a repo-level .claude/settings.json (the intended
pattern for team-wide plugin adoption), there is no command to refresh/upgrade the
plugin when a new version is published to the marketplace. The cached version persists
indefinitely.

Problem

When the plugin author publishes a new version to the marketplace:

1. There is no claude plugin refresh or claude plugin upgrade command
2. The auto-update mechanism does not reliably detect new versions
3. The only workaround is manually deleting cache directories and entries from

~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json, then restarting the session

1. settings.json and settings.local.json should NOT be touched — these are

repo-level configuration owned by the project

Proposed Solution

Expected behavior

A command like:

• claude plugin refresh my-plugin@my-marketplace — re-fetches from the marketplace

git repo and updates the local cache

• Or: automatic version detection on session start that compares the cached

gitCommitSha against the marketplace HEAD and pulls if stale

Actual behavior

• installed_plugins.json shows installedAt == lastUpdated, suggesting no

refresh ever occurs after initial install

• Old cached version at ~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<plugin>/<version>/

is served indefinitely

• Users must manually delete cache + registry entries to force a reinstall

Alternative Solutions

This is the only solution i found but it's problematic because of #1 because it's part of the repository github structure.

1. .claude/settings.json — the entire file is earlyai config, so it should be emptied                                                                                                                                   
2. .claude/settings.local.json — remove the earlyai enabledPlugins entry and earlyai-related permissions
3. ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json — remove the earlyai entry                                                                                                                                                  
4. ~/.claude/plugins/cache/earlyai-plugins/ — delete the cached plugin files                                                                                                                                            
5. ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/earlyai-plugins/ — delete the marketplace clone    

Priority

Critical - Blocking my work

Feature Category

CLI commands and flags

Use Case Example

Plugin authors distributing through private (or public) marketplaces use this pattern:

```json
// .claude/settings.json (committed to repo)
{
"extraKnownMarketplaces": {
"my-marketplace": {
"source": { "source": "git", "url": "https://github.com/org/marketplace.git" }
}
},
"enabledPlugins": {
"my-plugin@my-marketplace": true
}
}

This ensures every developer who clones the repo gets the plugin. The problem is
what happens after the initial install.

Impact

This blocks plugin authors from iterating on plugins distributed to teams. Every
version bump requires telling users to manually clear their cache — which is
undiscoverable and error-prone.

Additional Context

Related issues

• #32804 (unreliable update/upgrade path)
• #32983 (cache not refreshed when version string unchanged)
• #31462 (plugin update detection workflow — closed as duplicate)