[FEATURE] Plugin Manager: bucket view, overlap detection, and hygiene recommendations

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

Problem

The Manage Plugins panel shows a flat list of installed plugins with no signal on:

• What each plugin does relative to the others
• Which plugins overlap in function
• Which are safe to disable

Every active plugin injects its instructions into every conversation. A user with 20 plugins — including duplicates and overlapping pairs — is degrading their own response quality without knowing it. There is no visibility into this today.

Proposed Solution

Enhance the Manage Plugins panel with three additions:

1. Bucket groupings

Collapse the flat list into collapsible functional groups:

• Memory & Context Persistence
• Knowledge & Docs Retrieval
• Code Quality & Review
• Feature Development & Workflow
• Setup, Config & Project Management
• Design & Frontend
• Integrations & External Apps
• Experimental / Personal / Misc

Classification uses the plugin's name and plugin.json description — data already present in the cache.

2. Overlap detection

When two plugins in the same bucket share a functional role, show a warning badge on both:

⚠️ Overlaps with episodic-memory (both persist cross-session context)

3. Hygiene recommendations

Each plugin gets a chip: Keep, Review, or Disable, based on:

• Does it have a distinct function from other active plugins?
• Is it confirmed redundant (same name, different source namespace)?
• Is it one-time-use (e.g. setup/config plugins)?

A "Suggested core set" counter and one-click Apply hygiene button bulk-disables Review/Disable candidates.

Mockup

┌─ Manage Plugins ──────────────────────────────────┐
│  Plugins (20)   Marketplaces (7)                  │
│  [Search...]                      [Audit ▼]       │
│                                                   │
│  ▼ Memory & Context (2)  ⚠️ overlap               │
│  ● claude-mem              ✓ Keep                 │
│  ● episodic-memory         ⚡ Review  ← same role │
│                                                   │
│  ▼ Feature Dev (4)  ⚠️ duplicate                  │
│  ● superpowers@official    ✓ Keep                 │
│  ● superpowers@mktplace    ✗ Disable ← duplicate  │
│  ● feature-dev             ✓ Keep                 │
│  ● skill-creator           ⚡ Review              │
│                                                   │
│  ▼ Code Quality (4)                               │
│  ● code-review             ✓ Keep                 │
│  ● code-simplifier         ✓ Keep                 │
│  ● pr-review-toolkit       ✓ Keep                 │
│  ● security-guidance       ✓ Keep                 │
│                                                   │
│  Suggested core: 12 of 20 active                  │
│  [Apply hygiene — disable 4 flagged plugins]      │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Alternative Solutions

_No response_

Priority

High - Significant impact on productivity

Feature Category

Configuration and settings

Use Case Example

Why it matters

Context window quality scales inversely with active plugin count. Overlap between similar plugins (two memory managers, two workflow orchestrators) causes redundant instruction injection. Users have no visibility into this today.

The classification signals (plugin name + plugin.json description) are already present in the plugin cache. This is a presentation layer change — no new data required.

Proof of concept

The plugin-audit skill (https://github.com/crackcode09/plugin-audit) implements this exact classification logic as a Claude Code skill. It has been validated against a real 20-plugin inventory and produces accurate bucket assignments and overlap flags.

The feature proposal is asking for this logic to be native to the Manage Plugins panel instead of requiring a separate skill invocation.

Implementation note

Duplicate detection is trivial: two plugins with identical name fields but different namespace directories in the cache = confirmed duplicate. No heuristics needed.

Bucket assignment can be done with a simple keyword match against the description field, identical to what the plugin-audit skill does today.

Additional Context

plugin-audit-report.md