The Claude labyrinth.
Six surfaces, ten extension primitives, and a directory called Customize that means something slightly different in each. Click anything below — the grid filters to show what's actually compatible.
01 · The surfacesWhere Claude is running.
The same word, "Claude," refers to six products with different lifecycles, runtimes, and extension stories.
02 · The extension primitivesWhat you actually plug in.
Underneath the marketing names, there are about ten distinct extension primitives. Skills are portable. Plugins are Code-only. Connectors and Extensions are both MCP servers in disguise.
03 · The compatibility gridWhat works where.
Click any column header or row label to filter. Click a card above to highlight. Empty cells aren't always impossible — they're "not first-class today."
04 · Where skills actually liveSame folder. Seven inboxes.
Skills are the most cross-cutting primitive and the source of most "wait, where do I edit that?" pain. A SKILL.md file is portable — drop it in any of these locations.
05 · MCP, in five flavorsThe universal substrate.
Every "connector" and every "extension" you see in any Claude UI is, underneath, an MCP server. Remote vs local is the transport. The rest is naming.
06 · Where should this thing live?A two-second decision flow.
07 · The renamings glossaryWords that mean the same thing.
A lot of the confusion is just vocabulary.