### Preflight Checklist - [x] I have searched [existing issues](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3Abug) and this hasn't been reported yet - [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs) - [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code ### What's Wrong? The `/skills` command doesn't detect skills when the skill directory is a symlink. Running `/skills` shows "No skills found" even though the skill is corr

[BUG] /skills command doesn't find skills in symlinked directories

Status Open

Reported on v2.0.73

Maintainer reply None cached

Workaround ✓ Mentioned in thread ↓

Activity 11 comments · opened Dec 20, 2025

Preflight Checklist

[x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
[x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
[x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

The /skills command doesn't detect skills when the skill directory is a symlink. Running /skills shows "No skills found" even though the skill is correctly loaded and usable by the model.

What Should Happen?

/skills should follow symlinks when scanning ~/.claude/skills/ and .claude/skills/ directories, finding SKILL.md files inside symlinked skill directories.

Error Messages/Logs

> /skills
Skills
No skills found

No skills found. Skills are specialized prompts that extend Claude capabilities.

Create skills in .claude/skills/ or ~/.claude/skills/

Steps to Reproduce

Create a skill directory outside ~/.claude/skills/

mkdir -p ~/my-skills/sourcegraph
cat > ~/my-skills/sourcegraph/SKILL.md << 'EOF'                                       ---
name: sourcegraph                                                                     description: Search codebase via Sourcegraph
allowed-tools: Bash                                                                   ---
# Sourcegraph Skill
EOF

Symlink it into ~/.claude/skills/

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
ln -s ~/my-skills/sourcegraph ~/.claude/skills/sourcegraph

Verify the symlink resolves correctly

find -L ~/.claude/skills -name "*.md"   # outputs: ~/.claude/skills/sourcegraph/SKILL.md
find ~/.claude/skills -name "*.md"      # outputs nothing (no -L flag)

Run /skills in Claude Code - shows "No skills found"

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.0.73

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

11 Comments

ewernn · 8 months ago

Same underlying issue affects project configs in ~/.claude.json. When accessing a project via symlink vs real path, Claude creates separate project entries - MCP servers, allowed tools, etc. configured under one path don't appear when using the other.

Workaround: manually copy config between paths in ~/.claude.json.

github-actions[bot] · 7 months ago

This issue has been inactive for 30 days. If the issue is still occurring, please comment to let us know. Otherwise, this issue will be automatically closed in 30 days for housekeeping purposes.

iammarcin · 7 months ago

bump so its not closed. still happening

rursache · 6 months ago

so annoying, this needs to be fixed. or claude code should just read from ~/.agents/skills like all the other AI agents do

ralfstrobel · 6 months ago

This is likely a duplicate of the ongoing problem in #10238 / #18192

I tried both symlinking the entire .claude/skills directory as well as symlinking individual skill directories into .claude/skills. In both cases the skills are found correctly.

abh · 4 months ago

I think it worked for a while earlier this year and then broke again in the last month or two?

slhodson969 · 4 months ago

Confirming this issue. I have 16 skills symlinked from a separate repo into ~/.claude/skills/. They work in the project that contains the actual skill files, but don't appear in / autocomplete when working in any other project directory.

The symlinks resolve fine (ls -la ~/.claude/skills/skill-name/SKILL.md works), but skill discovery doesn't follow them.

Workaround: Replacing all symlinks with real copies (cp -r) immediately fixed the issue — skills appear in autocomplete across all projects.

Also worth noting that even if this gets fixed, auto-updates reportedly delete symlinks from ~/.claude/skills/ (see #50052), so symlinks may not be a reliable long-term approach regardless.

ShriPunta · 3 months ago

I have been struggling to make the sym link work, only to find out its not yet supported.
+1 to this.

Requesting standardized support like .agents/skills

itsjavi · 2 months ago

Please support standarized .agents/skills
I have to copy around skills all the time to keep them in sync.

geminixiang · 2 months ago

Do this in the codebase, Claude Code will be able to read the skills.

rm -r .claude/skills
ln -s ../.agents/skills .claude/skills

profitero-artyom-vorobyov · 19 days ago

Usage of symlinked skills will be very helpful for our team (team plan)