Plugins vs Snippets

Summary

Plugins are Git repositories cloned from GitHub (or other hosts); snippets are single files sourced by direct URL or via shorthand aliases. Choosing between them depends on whether the content lives in a full repo or a standalone file.

Details

Plugins are loaded with zinit load or zinit light. Zinit clones the repository with git clone and sources the appropriate entry-point file (matching *.plugin.zsh, init.zsh, or *.zsh-theme). Plugins are stored under $ZINIT[PLUGINS_DIR] and can be updated with zinit update.

Snippets are loaded with zinit snippet. Zinit downloads the file and caches it locally under $ZINIT[SNIPPETS_DIR]. Subsequent loads use the cache; pass -f to force a fresh download. Snippets support several URL shorthands:

Shorthand	Expands to
`OMZ::`	`https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/raw/master/`
`OMZL::`	`…/lib/`
`OMZP::`	`…/plugins/`
`OMZT::`	`…/themes/`
`PZT::`	`https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto/tree/master/`
`PZTM::`	`…/modules/`

When a snippet requires multiple files from a subdirectory, add zi ice svn to download the directory via Subversion rather than a single file.

Key behavioural differences:

Several ices (depth, from, bpick, ver, proto, cloneopts, pullopts, bindmap, trackbinds, wrap-track) do not work with snippets because there is no Git repo involved.
svn and link ices do not work with plugins.
Snippets are cached; plugins are full clones — snippets are lighter for single-file content from known URLs.

Examples

# Plugin — full Git repo, load with reporting
zinit load zdharma-continuum/history-search-multi-word

# Plugin — fast load, no reporting
zinit light zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions

# Snippet — raw URL
zinit snippet https://gist.githubusercontent.com/hightemp/5071909/raw/

# Snippet — OMZ shorthand
zinit snippet OMZL::git.zsh
zinit snippet OMZP::git
zinit snippet OMZT::robbyrussell

# Snippet — Prezto shorthand
zinit snippet PZTM::environment

# Multi-file snippet (subdirectory via SVN)
zi ice svn
zi snippet OMZP::gitfast

# Single-file completion snippet
zi ice as"completion"
zi snippet OMZP::docker/_docker

Caveats / Common Mistakes

Using zi snippet OMZP::git loads a single git.plugin.zsh; if the plugin contains multiple files or an _* completion, use svn or as"completion" as appropriate.
Snippet cache is not automatically invalidated on remote changes; run zinit update {URL} or zinit update --all to refresh.