Docs: "plugin" and "command" each mean several different things

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Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Jul 16, 2026

Building a helper (a skill + an MCP server), I kept tripping over two words that each denote several distinct things.

"plugin" spans:

  • the connector (MCP server / tools),
  • the .mcpb extension (that server packaged for Claude Desktop),
  • the skill (a policy doc that ships no tools), and
  • the plugin bundle (connector + skill, distributed via a marketplace).

So "install the plugin" / "add the connector" / "enable the skill" / "install the extension" are four different actions with heavily overlapping words.

"command" spans:

  • the plugin command primitive (commands/*.md, e.g. /commit-message),
  • a "command-style MCP" (a stdio server — the term the beads-mcp project uses), and
  • a CLI subcommand (deepwiki ask, deepwiki serve).

Three unrelated meanings in one small project. I ended up writing a glossary table into my own README just to keep them straight.

Ask: one canonical glossary + a diagram in the docs (plugin / connector / extension / skill / command / marketplace), one verb per artifact; reserve "command" for the slash-command primitive and use distinct terms ("CLI subcommand", "stdio server") elsewhere.

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