diff --git a/lib/inspec.rb b/lib/inspec.rb
index 3c0cdde71..c22061609 100644
--- a/lib/inspec.rb
+++ b/lib/inspec.rb
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ libdir = File.dirname(__FILE__)
 $LOAD_PATH.unshift(libdir) unless $LOAD_PATH.include?(libdir)
 
 require 'inspec/version'
+require 'inspec/plugins'
 require 'inspec/profile'
 require 'inspec/resource'
 require 'inspec/rspec_json_formatter'
diff --git a/lib/inspec/plugins.rb b/lib/inspec/plugins.rb
index be5c0b89e..526d26a44 100644
--- a/lib/inspec/plugins.rb
+++ b/lib/inspec/plugins.rb
@@ -2,8 +2,42 @@
 # author: Dominik Richter
 # author: Christoph Hartmann
 
+require 'forwardable'
+
 module Inspec
   module Plugins
     autoload :Resource, 'inspec/plugins/resource'
   end
+
+  class PluginCtl
+    extend Forwardable
+
+    attr_reader :registry
+    def_delegator :registry, :keys, :list
+
+    def initialize(home = nil)
+      @home = home || File.join(Dir.home, '.inspec', 'plugins')
+      @paths = Dir[File.join(@home, '**{,/*/**}', '*.gemspec')]
+               .map { |x| File.dirname(x) }
+               .map { |x| Dir[File.join(x, 'lib', 'inspec-*.rb')] }
+               .flatten
+      # map paths to names
+      @registry = Hash[@paths.map { |x|
+        [File.basename(x, '.rb'), x]
+      }]
+    end
+
+    def load(name)
+      path = @registry[name]
+      if path.nil?
+        fail "Couldn't find plugin #{name}. Searching in #{@home}"
+      end
+      puts "Loading plugin #{name} from #{path}"
+      require path
+    end
+  end
 end
+
+# Load all plugins on startup
+ctl = Inspec::PluginCtl.new
+ctl.list.each { |x| ctl.load(x) }