[BUG] Account-synced plugins cannot be removed: they reappear after removal from the desktop app AND claude.ai, and are invisible to the CLI

### Preflight Checklist

- [x] I have searched [existing issues](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3Abug) and this hasn't been reported yet
- [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
- [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

### What's Wrong?

Account-synced plugins cannot be removed: they reappear after removal from the desktop app AND claude.ai, and are invisible to the CLI
Summary
Five Anthropic "knowledge-work" plugins (Operations, Engineering, Product Management, Productivity, Marketing) plus a sixth hidden one (Plugin Management / cowork-plugin-management) cannot be removed by any available control. They reappear after every removal attempt and keep loading ~50 skills into every session.

All three removal paths fail:

Desktop app → Settings → Plugins → ⋮ → Remove — the row disappears, then returns.
claude.ai account plugin toggle — the documented fix ("To remove a synced plugin, turn the plugin off for your claude.ai account; the next synced session starts without it", support.claude.com/en/articles/14328846) — behaves identically. Removal does not stick.
claude plugin uninstall — impossible: the CLI cannot see them at all.
Environment
Claude Code 2.1.274, Claude desktop app (Code tab)
Windows 10 Home 19045
Plan: Max. Account belongs to an organization (account is the org owner).
Plugins installed 2026-09-16T00:04:15Z; all six within ~2 seconds of each other.

Diagnostics
The CLI has no knowledge of these plugins:

$ claude plugin list
No plugins installed. Use `claude plugin install` to install a plugin.
So claude plugin uninstall cannot be used as a workaround.

All CLI-side plugin state is already empty:

~/.claude/settings.json → "enabledPlugins": {}
~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json → {"version":2,"plugins":{}}
~/.claude/settings.local.json → does not exist
~/.claude/plugins/cache/ → contains only an unrelated plugin (cloudflare)
They live in a separate desktop-app subsystem:

%APPDATA%\Roaming\Claude\local-agent-mode-sessions\\\rpm\manifest.json

Each entry reads:

{
"name": "operations",
"displayName": "Operations",
"marketplaceName": "knowledge-work-plugins",
"installedBy": "user",
"installationPreference": "available"
}
Note "installedBy": "user" — these are NOT org-admin-forced, so the documented "organization owner marked them Required" explanation does not apply here.

The strongest diagnostic signal
A sixth plugin in the same panel, PDF Viewer, was removed successfully and has stayed removed. The five knowledge-work plugins, installed in the same batch from the knowledge-work-plugins marketplace, do not. Whatever distinguishes PDF Viewer from the knowledge-work bundle is likely the bug.

Additionally, cowork-plugin-management appears in manifest.json and loads its skills into sessions, but is not listed in the Settings → Plugins UI at all — so there is no control of any kind exposed for it.

Suspected origin
The account has a setup-claude skill described as "Guided setup — install role-matched plugins, connect your tools, try a skill". The batch install timestamp is consistent with that flow having run. If a guided-setup flow installs plugins in a state the removal UI cannot reverse, that would explain the symptom.

Impact
~50 skills load into every session and cannot be removed. On a plan with a weekly usage cap this is unwanted, unremovable context on every request, and several of the plugins are actively wrong for the user's domain (a US GAAP/SOX finance plugin on a project doing Dominican Republic DGII tax filings).

What I could not find
No existing issue, forum thread or Reddit post reporting this specific symptom. Searched the issue tracker, community forum and Reddit for "plugins reappear after removing", "plugin keeps reinstalling", "remove role-matched plugins". Issue [#28554](https://github.com/trinitariadigital/ERP/issues/28554) is a related but distinct bug (marketplace-installed plugin re-installing in the CLI).

### What Should Happen?

Removing a plugin removes it, and its skills stop loading into sessions.

### Error Messages/Logs

```shell

```

### Steps to Reproduce

Steps to reproduce
Open Settings → Plugins → Your plugins. Observe the group "From Anthropic & Partners".
Click ⋮ on any of the five rows → Remove.
The row disappears.
Reopen the panel (or restart the app). The row is back.
Repeat on claude.ai in a browser. Same result.

### Claude Model

None

### Is this a regression?

I don't know

### Last Working Version

_No response_

### Claude Code Version

2.1.274

### Platform

Anthropic API

### Operating System

Windows

### Terminal/Shell

Windows Terminal

### Additional Information

_No response_

Start by comparing the desktop plugin state in %APPDATA%\Roaming\Claude\local-agent-mode-sessions\\\rpm\manifest.json with the empty CLI state from `claude plugin list`. Reproduce removal through the desktop app and claude.ai, including the hidden cowork-plugin-management entry. Done means removed plugins stay absent and their skills no longer load into sessions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.