Your module must provide a few things so that your plugins can be found.
First, you need to implement hook_ctools_plugin_directory(). Here we're telling CTools that our plugins will be found in the module's directory in the plugins/<plugintype> directory. Context plugins will be in ctools_plugin_example/plugins/contexts, Content-type plugins will be in ctools_plugin_example/plugins/content_types.
<?php
function ctools_plugin_example_ctools_plugin_directory($module, $plugin) {
if ($module == 'ctools' && !empty($plugin)) {
return "plugins/$plugin";
}
}
?>
Second, if you module wants to provide default panels pages, you can implement hook_ctools_plugin_api(). CTools will then pick up your panels pages in the file named <modulename>.pages_default.inc.
<?php
function ctools_plugin_example_ctools_plugin_api($module, $api) {
if ($module == 'panels_mini' && $api == 'panels_default') {
return array('version' => 1);
}
if ($module == 'page_manager' && $api == 'pages_default') {
return array('version' => 1);
}
}
?>