Plugin skills not injected into `<available_skills>` context

[moltar]

Description

Plugin skills are loaded and executable, but they don't appear in the AI's <available_skills> section of the system prompt. This prevents the AI from knowing skills exist or proactively suggesting them.

Reproduction Steps

1. Create a plugin with a skill in the skills/ directory:

   skills/
   └── example-skill/
       ├── SKILL.md
       └── SKILL.body.md
   

2. SKILL.md contents:

   ---
   {
     "name": "example-skill",
     "description": "An example skill."
   }
   ---
   
   @SKILL.body.md
   

3. Launch Claude Code with the plugin:

   claude --plugin-dir .
   

4. Run /skills - the skill appears:

   Plugin skills (plugin)
   agent-skills:example-skill · ~4 tokens
   

5. Ask Claude: "Which skills do you have? List them all."

6. Claude responds that <available_skills> is empty and it has no skills.

7. Manually invoke /agent-skills:example-skill - it works correctly.

Expected Behavior

Skills shown in /skills should also appear in the <available_skills> section of the AI's context, allowing Claude to:

• Know what skills are available
• Proactively suggest using them when relevant
• Answer questions about available skills

Actual Behavior

• /skills command shows the skill correctly
• Skill executes when manually invoked
• <available_skills> in the AI's context is empty
• Claude cannot know skills exist without user manually invoking them

Environment

• OS: macOS
• Plugin loaded via: --plugin-dir .

Workaround

Users must manually invoke skills via /plugin-name:skill-name since Claude won't proactively suggest them.

[github-actions[bot]]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/9716
2. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/14689
3. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/14577

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[PrashamTrivedi]

It's not only for plugin skills. Skills in user namespace are also not recognised. I have around 13 skills in user space. Some of them are not getting invoked even after you literally ask Claude to invoke that skills. It worked after I disabled all plugins and all MCP servers...

This is what I got when I added MCP servers back

Update: Can't work with plugins, but with MCP servers, Claude now mixes up the slash command and skills, I invoked one of the skill and it worked. But this works when I don't have any plugins installed.

[moltar]

Ya I tried it on a completely new repo with no code, no Claude.md, etc.

The skills are ignored completely.

[sockpapi]

i am having the same issue on a new linux server i spun up. works fine on my mac

[yrom]

same issue! The skills in the plugin directory are not being correctly recognized. "The available skills list is empty at the moment." Tested claude code versions: 2.0.60 and 2.0.76