Setting Up the RRC R Tools Plugin for Claude Code

Goal

This guide walks through installing the rrc-R-tools Claude Code plugin, which gives you a shared set of R and Quarto skills that load automatically in every Claude Code session.

This is a Claude Code-specific setup.

What a Plugin Is

Claude Code can be extended with plugins: packages of skills, commands, and other behaviors that load automatically whenever you start a session. Skills are context documents that shape how Claude responds. The r-style skill, for example, tells Claude to prefer tidyverse idioms and here::here() for file paths without you having to say so every time.

Plugins are the team mechanism for sharing skills. Rather than each person maintaining their own copy of the R style guide in ~/.claude/skills/, we maintain one shared version in a plugin repo on GitHub. When the skill is updated, everyone gets the new version the next time Claude Code refreshes its plugin cache.

Plugins vs Personal Skills

You can also keep skills that are just for you. Personal skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ on your own machine and are not shared with anyone. A personal skill might capture your preferred writing style, your go-to packages for a specific project type, or any other preference that doesn’t need to be team-wide. To add one, create a subfolder in ~/.claude/skills/ with a SKILL.md file inside it.

You do not need to write the skill file yourself. You can ask Claude to create one for you (“create a personal skill that…”), or use Claude’s built-in skill-creator skill, which guides you through building, testing, and refining a new skill.

Plugin skills and personal skills coexist. Both load at the start of every session.

Skills Included in the RRC R Tools Plugin

Skill	What it does
r-style	Applies tidyverse style when writing or reviewing R code: pipe-based workflows, dplyr/tidyr/ggplot2, here::here() for repo paths. Loads on any .R, .Rmd, or .qmd work without prompting.
diagnose-before-fixing	When you share an error, Claude explains what it means and identifies the root cause before proposing a fix, then waits for your confirmation before making edits.
quarto-render-sync	On-demand skill for setting up a post-render hook that renames HTML output and copies it to a network drive (Egnyte / Z: drive).
quarto-scaffold	On-demand skill for scaffolding a new Quarto project with the right folder structure, _quarto.yml, template .qmd, setup chunk, and .gitignore.

The first two skills (r-style and diagnose-before-fixing) load automatically on every session. The last two (quarto-render-sync and quarto-scaffold) are reference skills. To invoke them, describe what you want in plain language (“scaffold a new Quarto project” or “set up a render-and-sync workflow”), or use a slash command directly: /quarto-scaffold or /quarto-render-sync. This works in both the Claude Code terminal and the Claude Code GUI in the Claude App desktop.

Prerequisites

Claude desktop App

The Claude desktop App is where you do your day-to-day work. If you don’t have it yet, download it from claude.ai and log in.

Claude Code CLI

The plugin install commands require the Claude Code CLI — a separate tool from the desktop App. Having the App does not give you the claude terminal command; you need to install the CLI separately. You only need it once for this setup.

Install the CLI. Open PowerShell and run:

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Fix PATH if needed. The installer may warn that the install location is not in your PATH. If so, run this before closing PowerShell (no need to change anything — it uses your current username automatically):

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", $env:PATH + ";$env:USERPROFILE\.local\bin", "User")

Then close and reopen PowerShell.

Verify. Run claude --version. You should see a version number. If you still get “not recognized,” close and reopen PowerShell once more.

GitHub access

You need access to the RRC-Associates/claude-rrc-plugins GitHub repository. No local clone is needed — Claude Code fetches the plugin directly from GitHub.

Setup

Important

Plugin management is CLI-only. All of the /plugin ... commands and /reload-plugins run inside a Claude Code CLI session (the claude command in PowerShell), not in the desktop App GUI. The GUI loads and uses the skills, but it doesn’t expose the plugin-management slash commands. You only need to do these setup steps once; afterward, the skills are available in both CLI and GUI sessions.

Step 1: Open a Claude Code session

In PowerShell, run:

claude

You will be prompted to:

1. Sign in — select the option to log in with your Anthropic subscription. A verification code will be displayed; paste it back into the session when prompted.
2. Pick a mode — select the default mode to continue.

Once signed in, you’ll see the > prompt. You’re now inside Claude Code.

Step 2: Add the marketplace

At the > prompt, run:

/plugin marketplace add RRC-Associates/claude-rrc-plugins

This registers the RRC plugin repository as a source Claude Code can install from. You only need to do this once.

Step 3: Install the plugin

Still at the > prompt, run:

/plugin install rrc-R-tools@claude-rrc-plugins

Claude Code will show a confirmation screen with the plugin name and description. Select Install for you (user scope) and press Enter.

User scope installs the plugin for your account across all projects. Do not choose project scope unless you have a specific reason.

Step 4: Enable auto-update

By default, Claude Code only auto-checks for updates from Anthropic’s own marketplaces — third-party marketplaces like claude-rrc-plugins have auto-update disabled out of the box. Turn it on now so you don’t miss future skill updates:

1. At the > prompt, run /plugin.
2. Open the Marketplaces tab and select claude-rrc-plugins.
3. Choose Enable auto-update.

With this enabled, Claude Code checks for new versions at session startup and prompts you to run /reload-plugins whenever an update is available.

Step 5: Verify

Close and reopen Claude Code (CLI or App GUI), then start a new session. Ask Claude: “What skills do you have available?” You should see r-style and diagnose-before-fixing in the response. quarto-render-sync, quarto-scaffold, and quarto-word are on-demand skills — they won’t appear in the auto-load list but are available when you need them (just describe what you want or use the slash commands directly, e.g. /quarto-scaffold, /quarto-render-sync, /quarto-word).

Keeping the Plugin Current

You enabled auto-update during setup (Step 4), so Claude Code checks for new versions at the start of each session.

From the CLI

When an update is available, Claude Code prompts you to run /reload-plugins — that loads the new versions into your active session. That’s the entire flow.

To force a refresh manually (e.g., a change just landed and you don’t want to wait for the next session start):

/plugin marketplace update claude-rrc-plugins
/reload-plugins

The first command pulls the latest catalog and plugin versions from the GitHub repo; the second loads them into your session.

From the desktop App GUI

The /plugin ... family and /reload-plugins are not available in the GUI input — they’re CLI-only. To pick up an update from the GUI, fully quit the app and relaunch it.

Important

On Windows, closing the window (“X-ing out”) doesn’t always end the process. Open Task Manager, end the Claude process (and any background helper processes), then relaunch the app. After this restart, the new skill version will be loaded.

If you want to force a marketplace refresh before relaunching the GUI, open a CLI session (claude in PowerShell), run the two-command pair above, then fully quit and relaunch the GUI.

Suggesting changes

To suggest a change to one of the skills, reach out to Cathy. Changes go into the GitHub repo and propagate to everyone on the next update.