plugin-bridge

Plugin Bridge

Keep an AI agent's skills directory in sync with the Claude Code codealive plugin's versioned cache. The bridge lets agents like Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or Windsurf consume the same skill files the Claude Code plugin installs, and updates the link automatically on claude plugin update.

Why

Claude Code stores plugins under a versioned cache: ~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<plugin>/<version>/. Every call to claude plugin update writes a new versioned directory and leaves the old one behind. Agents other than Claude Code don't read from that cache — they look for skills in their own directories (~/.codex/skills/, ~/.gemini/skills/, etc.).

A symlink from the agent's skills directory into the cache lets them share the plugin's skill with zero duplication. The trade-off: that symlink breaks every time the plugin version changes. plugin-bridge rewrites the symlink to point at the newest versioned directory whenever the cache changes on disk.

Files

File	Purpose
update-symlink.sh	Scans the plugin cache and refreshes the agent symlink if the target has changed
com.codealive.plugin-bridge.plist.template	launchd agent template with placeholders
install-macos.sh	Renders the plist, writes it to ~/Library/LaunchAgents, and bootstraps the agent
uninstall-macos.sh	Removes the launchd agent; leaves existing symlinks untouched

Install (macOS)

./install-macos.sh

Verify the symlink and the agent:

ls -la ~/.codex/skills/codealive-context-engine
launchctl print "gui/$(id -u)/com.codealive.plugin-bridge" | head
cat /tmp/codealive-plugin-bridge.log

Run claude plugin update codealive@codealive-marketplace, then re-check the symlink — it should now point at the new version's directory.

Configure

All paths are environment-variable driven with defaults suitable for Codex CLI. Export the variables before running install-macos.sh to target a different agent.

Variable	Default
CODEALIVE_PLUGIN_CACHE	~/.claude/plugins/cache/codealive-marketplace/codealive
CODEALIVE_PLUGIN_SUBPATH	skills/codealive-context-engine
CODEALIVE_AGENT_LINK	~/.codex/skills/codealive-context-engine

Example for Gemini CLI:

CODEALIVE_AGENT_LINK=~/.gemini/skills/codealive-context-engine ./install-macos.sh

Note: environment variables are read by update-symlink.sh at runtime. launchd launches it via /bin/bash without inheriting your shell, so the overrides must be either baked into the script, exported in ~/.zshenv, or injected through an EnvironmentVariables key in the plist.

Uninstall (macOS)

./uninstall-macos.sh

Linux

A systemd --user path unit gives the equivalent behaviour. Create two files:

~/.config/systemd/user/codealive-plugin-bridge.path:

[Unit]
Description=Watch CodeAlive plugin cache

[Path]
PathModified=%h/.claude/plugins/cache/codealive-marketplace/codealive

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

~/.config/systemd/user/codealive-plugin-bridge.service:

[Unit]
Description=Refresh CodeAlive plugin symlink

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/bash %h/path/to/update-symlink.sh

Enable with systemctl --user enable --now codealive-plugin-bridge.path.

Windows

No native file-watcher is shipped here. A Task Scheduler entry calling update-symlink.sh via WSL bash or a PowerShell port on login and every N minutes is a reasonable fallback.