The next fight in AI coding tools has landed on a small plugin.json file.
Agent Plugins 1.0.0 is now public. Google joined as a Core Maintainer, while AWS and Vercel published support for the standard, and VS Code documentation already recognizes Agent Plugins 1.0 alongside Copilot, Claude, and legacy plugin formats.
The manifest becomes the boundary
Google's launch post put the pain plainly:
“The core problem isn't the components. It's the manifest.”
MCP connects models to tools and data. Agent Skills package reusable instructions and resources. The missing layer was a shared wrapper that lets both travel together without each client inventing its own directory and metadata rules.
The 1.0.0 contract is deliberately small: a plugin is one directory, plugin.json sits at the root, Skills live under skills/, MCP server configuration lives in mcp.json, and client-specific additions use reverse-domain namespaces such as com.example.client/.
The package is shared; permissions stay local
The steering group named by Google includes Amazon, Cursor, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel, with Google joining through Kevin Hou. Vercel says 1.0.0 is publicly available, and AWS frames it as a way to package once for clients such as Kiro, VS Code, and Cursor.
That does not merge the marketplaces. Installation, distribution, permissions, sandboxing, provenance, and user experience remain product-owned. The early agreement is narrower: schema, layout, loading rules, and failure isolation.
Why developers should care
The near-term gain is lower packaging cost. A reporting Skill and its MCP database server can ship together without a separate wrapper for every client. Enterprises also get a clearer audit surface: fixed manifest, fixed component locations, and explicit skip rules when a server fails.
The test now is client behavior. If ChatGPT, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, Kiro, VS Code, and Google tools load the same package consistently, plugin authors will start treating Agent Plugins as the default shipping format.
Sources: Google Developers Blog, AWS Open Source Blog, Vercel, Agent Plugins specification, VS Code documentation, CocoLoop; verification covers Agent Plugins 1.0.0, Core Maintainers, plugin.json and schema requirements, fixed skills and mcp.json locations, VS Code compatible formats, and failure-isolation rules.