diff --git a/src/plugin-catalog.test.ts b/src/plugin-catalog.test.ts
index eedb6dff..6d2065de 100644
--- a/src/plugin-catalog.test.ts
+++ b/src/plugin-catalog.test.ts
@@ -119,4 +119,27 @@ describe('plugin catalog', () => {
     expect(result.plugins.map((plugin) => plugin.name)).toEqual(['flights']);
     expect(result.errors).toEqual([{ sourceId: 'bad', manifestUrl: 'https://bad.test/webcmd-plugin.json', message: 'network failed' }]);
   });
+
+  it('matches normalized plugin names across query separators and order', async () => {
+    const catalog: PluginCatalog = {
+      version: 1,
+      sources: [{ id: 'agentrhq/webcmd', source: 'github:agentrhq/webcmd', manifestUrl: 'https://example.com/webcmd-plugin.json' }],
+    };
+    const fetchJson = async () => ({ plugins: { hackernews: { path: 'plugins/hackernews', description: 'Tools for technology discussions' } } });
+
+    for (const query of ['hacker news', 'hacker-news', 'hacker.news', 'hackernews', 'hacker', 'news hacker']) {
+      const result = await searchCatalogPlugins(catalog, { query, fetchJson });
+      expect(result.plugins.map((plugin) => plugin.name), `query: ${query}`).toEqual(['hackernews']);
+    }
+  });
+
+  it('requires every query token to match', async () => {
+    const catalog: PluginCatalog = {
+      version: 1,
+      sources: [{ id: 'agentrhq/webcmd', source: 'github:agentrhq/webcmd', manifestUrl: 'https://example.com/webcmd-plugin.json' }],
+    };
+    const fetchJson = async () => ({ plugins: { hackernews: { path: 'plugins/hackernews', description: 'Tools for technology discussions' } } });
+    const miss = await searchCatalogPlugins(catalog, { query: 'reddit news', fetchJson });
+    expect(miss.plugins).toEqual([]);
+  });
 });
diff --git a/src/plugin-catalog.ts b/src/plugin-catalog.ts
index c8b009f3..64296349 100644
--- a/src/plugin-catalog.ts
+++ b/src/plugin-catalog.ts
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ export async function searchCatalogPlugins(
 
   const query = options.query?.trim().toLowerCase();
   const filtered = query
-    ? plugins.filter((plugin) => `${plugin.name} ${plugin.description ?? ''}`.toLowerCase().includes(query))
+    ? plugins.filter((plugin) => matchesSearchQuery(plugin, query))
     : plugins;
 
   filtered.sort((a, b) => a.name.localeCompare(b.name));
@@ -160,6 +160,22 @@ export async function searchCatalogPlugins(
   return { plugins: filtered, errors };
 }
 
+/** Strip everything but letters/digits so separators (spaces, hyphens, ...) can't hide a match. */
+function normalizeForSearch(text: string): string {
+  return text.toLowerCase().replace(/[^a-z0-9]+/g, '');
+}
+
+/**
+ * Multi-word queries must match as independent tokens, not one literal substring — "hacker
+ * news" should still find the "hackernews" plugin. Each token is matched separately so word
+ * order in the query doesn't matter either.
+ */
+function matchesSearchQuery(plugin: PluginSearchRow, query: string): boolean {
+  const haystack = normalizeForSearch(`${plugin.name} ${plugin.description ?? ''}`);
+  const tokens = query.split(/[^a-z0-9]+/).filter(Boolean);
+  return tokens.every((token) => haystack.includes(token));
+}
+
 function seedUserCatalog(packageRoot: string | undefined, homeDir: string): void {
   const packagedPath = getPackagedPluginCatalogPath(packageRoot);
   const userPath = getUserPluginCatalogPath(homeDir);