Google joins Agent Plugins: package skills + MCP once, run everywhere
Write-once packaging ends per-client reformatting — and Google just joined the maintainers already behind OpenAI, AWS, Cursor, Microsoft, and Vercel.
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Google signs on as a Core Maintainer
Google's Agents CLI and Data Agent Kit now load Agent Plugins, and Google joins the steering committee alongside AWS, Cursor, Microsoft, GitHub, OpenAI, and Vercel. A standard that shipped without Google now reaches its agent stack too.
One package, every major agent client
The same plugin loads in ChatGPT and Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and Kiro — no rearranging files or maintaining a separate build per tool. Package your capability once and it carries across every supporting client.
Skills and MCP servers in one folder
A plugin is just a directory: a plugin.json manifest, an optional skills/ folder of Agent Skills, and an optional mcp.json declaring MCP servers. It wraps two standards you already use into one predictable, portable package.
Build one this weekend
Three files ship a plugin: the manifest, a skills/<name>/SKILL.md, and an mcp.json pointing at a stdio or Streamable HTTP server. Clients expand PLUGIN_ROOT and PLUGIN_DATA, so you can bundle a local MCP server with its skill and hand it to any supported editor.
Read the fine print
v1.0 is an "interoperability floor" — it standardizes packaging only, leaving install, distribution, permissions, and trust to each client. One gotcha: legacy SSE MCP transport isn't supported in ChatGPT/Codex, so prefer stdio or Streamable HTTP.