[BUG] [Cowork] A deleted organization plugin keeps running in Claude Desktop until the next hourly full plugin sync or a restart, although the dialog says installed users "lose it right away"

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet (related: #90329, #82607)
• [x] This is a single bug report
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code (Claude Desktop 2.19675.0 for macOS; agent 2.1.286)

What's Wrong?

As the Owner of a Team organization I uploaded a plugin to the Organization library, set it to Available to install, and installed it in Claude Desktop. The Owner and the installing user are the same account. Then I deleted it from the library. The delete dialog says:

This permanently deletes the plugin and all of its versions for everyone in your organization. People who have it installed lose it right away. This can't be undone.

The installing user did not lose it right away. In the running Claude Desktop it stayed in Customize > Plugins > Yours and in the / menu, and new local Cowork tasks loaded and ran its skill. In the second trial (a clean delete from Available to install) that was still true 6.6 and 26.7 minutes after the delete.

main.log shows why. The Desktop's 20-minute plugin sync is a "quick" sync that skips removal by design. Only a full sync removes the deleted plugin, and a full sync runs at app start and then about every 60 minutes:

• Trial 1: removed by the hourly full sync 39 minutes after the delete, with no restart.
• Trial 2: removed by the startup full sync 3 seconds after I quit and reopened the app, 29 minutes after the delete.

So a delete can take up to about an hour to reach a running Desktop, unless the user restarts it.

What Should Happen?

What the dialog says: people who have the plugin installed lose it right away. Any of these would do that:

• the quick sync also drops deleted plugins;
• the delete is pushed to running Desktops;
• at the very least, the dialog says it can take up to an hour or needs a restart.

This matters most when an admin deletes a plugin because something is wrong with it.

Error Messages/Logs

# ~/Library/Logs/Claude/main.log during the window (times local, ids redacted)
[RemotePluginManager] Starting periodic sync (interval: 1200000ms)
[RemotePluginManager] Starting remote plugins sync (quick — skipping user-plugin cleanup)
[RemotePluginManager] Quick sync: kept 8 user-installed plugin(s) without the catalog refresh or unavailable-plugin cleanup; the next full sync does both
[RemotePluginManager] Periodic tick upgrading to full pass (staleness 3600000ms, elapsed 3600041ms)
[RemotePluginManager] Removed 1 user-installed plugin(s) no longer available: plugin_<id> (not_found)

Steps to Reproduce

1. As an Owner of a Team org: Organization settings > Plugins & skills > Add > Upload a plugin. Use a minimal plugin whose skill runs a shell command that prints a marker. The upload lands with Default access "Not available" (the marketplace default). Change it in the row menu > Default access > Available to install.
2. In Claude Desktop (macOS): Customize > Plugins > Discover > install it. Start a local Cowork task and run the skill from the / menu. It works.
3. As the Owner: Inventory > the plugin's row menu > Delete > confirm.
4. Without restarting Claude Desktop, start a new local task a few minutes later and run the skill. It is still in the menu and still runs. In main.log, the 20-minute syncs log Quick sync: kept ….
5. Wait for the next Periodic tick upgrading to full pass (up to about 60 min after the last full sync), or quit and reopen the app. Then Removed 1 user-installed plugin(s) no longer available appears and the plugin is gone.

Claude Model

Not model-related.

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Claude Code Version

Claude Desktop 2.19675.0 (5706e5) for macOS; agent 2.1.286.

Platform

Anthropic API (Claude subscription: Team plan)

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Other: Claude Desktop app (Cowork), local tasks ("Only on this computer" on)

Additional Information

• Two delete trials. Trial 1 deleted an item that was already set to Not available. Trial 2 deleted it from Available to install. Both behaved as above.
• Possibly the same mechanism: after the plugin was set to Not available (before any delete) it still loaded at +6 and +14 minutes (one trial, two tasks). Whether a full sync removes a Not-available plugin was not tested. For Not available, the docs say that "Claude stops loading it for them, including members who had it installed" (https://claude.com/docs/plugins/admin, under rolling back). The "right away" promise for delete comes from the dialog only.
• Not tested: cloud (remote) tasks, and users who had not installed the plugin.
• Related: #90329 (the Desktop's org plugin store updates on its own schedule), #82607 (org plugin updates aren't atomic).