Summary
A cross-vendor standard called Agent Plugins 1.0, initiated by Vercel with a steering committee of Amazon, Anysphere (Cursor), Microsoft, and OpenAI plus GitHub, defines how agent extensions are packaged and discovered. A plugin is a folder with a plugin.json that bundles MCP servers with reusable Agent Skills and works across ChatGPT, Copilot, Cursor, and other platforms.
What changed
On August 6, 2026 the group published Agent Plugins 1.0, a portable packaging format (a folder with a small plugin.json file at its root) combining MCP servers with Agent Skills so one plugin works across ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Kiro, and VS Code.
Why it matters
Standardizing plugin packaging on top of MCP reduces per-platform integration work and pushes the agent ecosystem toward write-once, run-everywhere extensions, a distribution shift that benefits tool builders and raises the stakes for platforms that do not adopt it.
Evidence excerpt
A plugin is just a folder with a small plugin.json file at its root.