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2. Marketplace Creation & Action Steps

Note: The video covers material not in the guide below — please watch in full.

Action Step

Complete this before moving on.

First, add the LeanScale marketplace to your account (if you don't have access, reach out so we can get you added). Then create your own marketplace from scratch: go into GitHub, make a repo, clone it locally, and push something into it — ask Claude to make a demo plugin, whatever it is. Add that marketplace to your own account and install the plugin so you get the feel of the full create-a-marketplace flow end to end. This leans on GitHub basics, so if you haven't done the GitHub training on the other side of Academy yet, go through that first.

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Training Guide

So how do you create a marketplace? Like the answer to all things in life these days — you just ask Claude to make you one.

And we've built a tool that makes that even easier.

The Plugin Maker​

We have a LeanScale plugins plugin that lives inside our own marketplace. Step one for this training is to add the LeanScale marketplace to your account — go do that right now. If you don't have access, reach out so we can get you added.

Inside it, there's a plugin called the Plugin Maker, and inside that plugin is a single skill: the Plugin Maker skill. If you open it up in GitHub, you'll see it's not just the skill file — there's also a references file with additional information, and the skill is loaded with context on what a plugin is, what a marketplace is, and all of that. As you saw in the previous video, Claude is smart enough to set up a marketplace on its own — you can just instruct it and it'll handle it.

Before you start, there's one account detail that changes what you'll see.

Organization vs. Individual Accounts​

In the early days of AI — meaning about three months ago — everyone signed up for an individual Max plan using a LeanScale payment method. If that's you, you won't have access to the organization-level plugins.

Now that usage limits are loosening up and Anthropic has more compute, we're slowly moving everyone over to the organization plan. Once you're on it, the option to add plugins on the organization level will show up for you. For now, some of this is demonstrated on the personal side.

The next thing to get right is whether your repo is public or private.

Private vs. Public Repos​

Here's an important caveat. To register a marketplace on the organization level, the repo actually has to be private. The setting says it plainly: only private and internal repos are shown — to use a public repository, fork it into a private repo first.

On the personal side, you can likely add a marketplace that isn't private (Anthropic's own marketplace repo is public and can be added personally) — but fact-check that yourself. The private requirement is specifically an org-level thing.

This creates a real tension when you want to show off a marketplace. Say you want to demo the LeanScale marketplace in a QBR or build it as an asset to share publicly — but the org level needs it private. The workaround I've used: keep two versions. For an investment partner (Radian), I had a private one to demonstrate what it looks like added at the org level, and a public one so I could share an actual GitHub link with the investor who wasn't a member of the repo.

Wrap-Up​

Creating a marketplace is mostly asking Claude — the Plugin Maker skill comes preloaded with everything it needs to know. Add the LeanScale marketplace, then go build your own: make the repo, clone it, push a demo plugin, and run through the whole flow yourself. A lot of this assumes you know how GitHub works, so make sure you've gone through the GitHub training in Academy if you haven't yet.