A plugin extends your assistant's default capabilities. It can add hooks, tools, and skills — from compressing the assistant's own output to logging your workouts. Each plugin is a self-contained GitHub repo you install with a single command.

Open any plugin's page and copy the install command, then paste it to your assistant or run it in the CLI: assistant plugins install <name>. That's it — no build step, no config file to edit.

A skill is a single packaged capability. A plugin is broader: it can bundle skills together with hooks and tools that wire more deeply into the assistant. Skills ship inside Vellum; plugins are community and partner extensions distributed through this directory and installed from their own repos.

Yes. Every plugin in the directory is open source and free to install. Some plugins call third-party APIs that may have their own costs, but the plugin itself never costs anything.

Plugins in this directory are reviewed by the Vellum team, install from a pinned commit, and run inside Vellum's sandbox with per-actor permissions. Your credentials live in a separate process and never reach the model. You can also read every line of source on GitHub before installing.

In its own GitHub repo. Each plugin page links straight to the source at the exact commit it installs from, so you can inspect the scripts it runs and its full history before and after you install.

You stay on the version you installed until you choose to update, because installs are pinned to a specific commit. When you update, you can see exactly what changed in the repo first.

Absolutely. A plugin is a repo with a package.json manifest plus the hooks, tools, and skills it contributes. The simple-memory plugin is the reference implementation and exercises every wired surface — start there. Read the docs.

Only what you allow. Plugins run under Vellum's permission system: high-risk actions require your explicit confirmation, network access goes through an outbound proxy, and secrets are collected through a secure prompt that never exposes them to the model.

Ask your assistant to uninstall it, or run assistant plugins uninstall <name>. Plugins are self-contained, so removing one leaves the rest of your setup untouched.